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CARPENTER’S 
WORLD. TRAVELS 



Familiar Talks About Countries 
and Peoples 

WITH THE AUTHOR ON THE SPOT AND 
THE READER IN HIS HOME, BASED 
ON THREE HUNDRED THOU¬ 
SAND MILES OF TRAVEL 
OVER THE GLOBE 


“READING CARPENTER IS SEEING THE WORLD” 








































































' 




















































■ # 














/ 




/* 







, 













WHERE MAN FEELS CLOSE TO GOD 

Canada shares with the United States the glories of the Rockies, 
which invite the traveller ever westward and, once seen, cast a spell that 
is never shaken off. 





CARPENTER’S IVORLD TRAVELS 

CANADA 

AND 

NEWFOUNDLAND 

BY 

FRANK G. CARPENTER 
LITT.CK, f.r.g.s. 



/ / 

WITH I 1 6 ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1924 













Ff 0 15“ 

.C /f 33 

CLe-C ' •' ^ 


COPYRIGHT, I924, BY 
FRANK G. CARPENTER 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATE8 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 


JX . 


JUN -5 1924 

C1A703514 






ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


I N THE publication of this volume on my travels in 
Canada and Newfoundland, I wish to thank the 
Secretary of State for letters which have given me the 
assistance of our official representatives in the coun¬ 
tries visited. I thank also the Secretary of Agriculture 
and our Secretary of Labour for appointing me an Hon¬ 
ourary Commissioner of their Departments in foreign 
lands. Their credentials have been of great value, making 
accessible sources of information seldom opened to the 
ordinary traveller. 

To the officials of the Dominions of Newfoundland and 
Canada I desire to express my thanks for exceptional 
courtesies which greatly aided me in my investigations. 

I would also thank Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, 
and Miss Ellen McB. Brown and Miss Josephine Lehmann, 
my associate editors, for their assistance and cooperation 
in the revision of notes dictated or penned by me on the 
ground. 

While nearly all of the illustrations in Carpenter’s World 
Travels are from my own negatives, those in the book 
have been supplemented by photographs from the official 
collections of the Canadian government, the Canadian 
National Lines, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Pub¬ 
lishers’ Photo Service, the Holloway Studios of St. John’s, 
N. F., and Lomen Bros., of Nome, Alaska. 

F. G. C. 


Vll 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Just a Word Before we Start . . i 

II. The Key to the St. Lawrence . . 3 

III. Around About St. John's .... 8 

IV. The Cod Fisheries of Newfoundland. 13 

V. Iron Mines Under the Sea ... 24 

VI. The Maritime Provinces .... 31 

VII. In French Canada.42 

VIII. Ste. Anne de Beaupre and its Mirac¬ 
ulous Cures.52 

IX. Montreal.60 

X. Canada’s Big Banks .69 

XI. Ottawa—The Capital of the Dominion 79 

XII. The Lumber Yard of an Empire . . 88 

XIII. Toronto—The City of Public Owner¬ 

ship .97 

XIV. Waterfalls that Work for the People 106 

XV. Niagara’s Giant Power Station . . 113 

XVI. The Silver Mines of Northern Ontario i 19 

XVII. Nickel for all the World .... 127 

XVIII. Sault Ste. Marie and the Clay Belt . 134 

XIX. The Twin Lake Ports.141 


IX 






CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. Winnipeg—Where the Prairies 

Begin.148 

XXI. The Great Transcontinental Rail¬ 

ways . 157 

XXII. The Land of Furs.166 

XXIII. Saskatchewan.175 

XXIV. The World’s Largest Wheatfield 181 

XXV. The Open Door in Canada . . 188 

XXVI. Edmonton—The Gateway to the 

Northwest.197 

XXVII. The Passing of the Cattle Range 206 

XXVIII. Over the Great Divide . . . 213 

XXIX. Through British Columbia to the 

Coast.220 

XXX. Prince Rupert.226 

XXXI. By Motor Car Through the Wil¬ 
derness .232 

XXXII. From White Horse to Dawson . 241 

XXXIII. The Capital of the Yukon . . 250 

XXXIV. Farming on the Edge of the Arctic 259 

XXXV. Mining Wonders of the Far North 266 

XXXVI. Romances of the Klondike . . . 274 

XXXVII. A Dredge King of the Klondike . 281 

XXXVIII. The Royal Canadian Mounted 

Police.288 

See the World with Frank G. Carpenter . . 298 

Index.301 


x 









LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Where Man Feels Close to God 


The Untold Wealth of Canada . 
Newfoundland’s Rocky Coast . 
Icebergs off St. John’s Harbour 
The Capital City of Newfoundland 
On the Fish Wharves 
Spreading Codfish out to Dry . 
Fishing Villages .... 
Hunting Seals on the Ice Fields 
Caribou Crossing a River 
Ore Piles at the Wabana Mines 
The Annual Fishermen’s Race 
Halifax Harbour .... 

Cape Breton Island . 

Evangeline’s Well 
Low Tide in the Bay of Fundy 
A Quebec Farm House . 

French Canadian Woman Spinning 
The Gibraltar of America 
The St. Louis Gate at Quebec 
A Plank-paved Street 
Ribbon-like Farms along the St. La 
A Wayside Shrine 
The Church of Notre Dame. 

Grain Elevators of Montreal 


wrence 


Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
2 

• • 3 

. . 6 

• • 7 

. . 14 

. . 15 

. . 18 

. . 19 

. . 19 

. 22 

. . 23 

. . 30 

. . 31 

. . 38 

. . 38 

. . 39 

• • 39 

. . 46 

. . 47 

. . 50 

. . 51 

. . 54 

• • 55 

. 62 


xi 









ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING PAGE 

Montreal from Mount Royal .63 

In the Old French Market.66 

Toboggan Slide Down Mount Royal.67 

“Shooting” the Rapids.70 

Through the La Chine Canal.70 

Along the Rideau Canal.71 

The Heights Above the Ottawa River .... 78 

The Library of Parliament.79 

A Giant of the Forest.86 

Food for a Pulp Mill.87 

A Forest Patrol Airplane.87 

Log Jam on a Canadian River.94 

Toronto’s Municipal Playground .95 

Farm Scene in Ontario.95 

Toronto, City of Sky-scrapers.102 

Flax Raising in Ontario.103 

Orchards of the Niagara Peninsula.no 

The Big Ditch at Niagara .111 

Ontario’s Giant Power Station.111 

Potential Power for Canadian Industries . . . 118 

The Mining Town of Cobalt ..119 

Where One Walks on Silver.126 

Erecting a “ Discovery Post ” 127 

The World’s Greatest Freight Canal.134 

Bascule Bridge at Sault Ste. Marie.134 

Moose Feeding.135 

Ontario Lake Country .135 

Calling Moose.138 

A Fishermen’s Mecca.139 

The Mighty Elevators of Port Arthur . . . . 142 

The Falls of Kakabeka.143 

xii 




























ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACINGVPAGE 

A Six-hundred-foot Lake Freighter . . . . 143 

The Gateway to the Prairies .150 

Cutting Corn by Machinery.151 

Stacking Wheat.151 

Over the Trans-continental Route.158 

“ Selling the Scenery ”.159 

Bargaining with the Eskimos.166 

A Hudson's Bay Trading Post.167 

A Foster Mother for Foxes.167 

Valuable Furs as Every-day Garments . . . . 174 

The Capital of Saskatchewan .175 

Grain Lands of the Prairies.178 

American Windmills in Saskatchewan . . . . 179 

Threshing Wheat.179 

In Canada’s Great Wheat Province.182 

Farming on a Large Scale .183 

Future Citizens of the Dominion .190 

A Modern Ranch.191 

Raising Corn in Alberta.194 

Railroads as Colonizers.195 

Giving the Settler a Start.195 

Digging Coal from a “Country Bank” . . . . 198 

Milking Machines in an Alberta Dairy . . . . 199 

Water for Three Million Acres.206 

Passing of the “Wild West”.207 

A Royal Ranch Owner.207 

Calgary’s Business Section . 210 

Mounted Police Headquarters at Macleod . . .211 

Lake of the Hanging Glaciers.214 

The Monarch of the Herd.215 

Mountain Climbing in the Canadian Alps . . . 222 

xiii 











ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACING PAGE 

At the Foot of Mount Robson . . .223 

The Land of the Kootenays.226 

Apple Orchards of the Pacific Slope.227 

Canada’s Most English City.227 

Street in Prince Rupert.230 

The World’s Greatest Halibut Port.230 

Totem Poles at Kitwanga .231 

Over the White Pass Railway.238 

On the Overland Trail .239 

Roadhouse on the Tahkeena River.239 

The Head of Navigation on the Yukon .... 242 

A Klondike Heating Plant.243 

Islands in the Upper Yukon .246 

Through the Five Finger Rapids .247 

A Summer Residence in the Klondike .... 254 

The White House of the Yukon.254 

In the Land of the Midnight Sun.255 

Redtop Grass Inside the Arctic Circle . . . .258 
A Ten-thousand-dollar Potato Patch . . .239 

Dredging the Golden Gravel.274 

Washing Down the Hills.275 

Old-time Mining Methods .278 

From Gold Seeker to Settler.279 

The Prospector on the Trail.279 

A Dredge King of the Klondike.286 

Hydraulic Mining.287 

The Guardian of the Northwest.290 

An Eskimo of Ellesmere Island ..291 


xiv 










CANADA 

AND 

NEWFOUNDLAND 



CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


CHAPTER I 

JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START 

T HE country through which we shall travel in this 
book is the biggest on the North American con¬ 
tinent. The Dominion of Canada is almost as 
big as all Europe. It is bigger than the United 
States and all its outlying possessions. It is thirty times 
as big as Great Britain and Ireland, and it has one third 
of all the land over which the Union Jack flies. 

We shall find the country one of magnificent distances 
and wide, open spaces. It lies just over our boundary and 
reaches from there to just below the North Pole. More¬ 
over, it is so thinly settled that it could increase its lands 
now under cultivation fivefold and not exhaust its avail¬ 
able farms. 

The Dominion has untold mineral and industrial 
wealth. It has enough natural resources to support many 
times its present population of nine or ten millions, and 
one day it will have, so Canadians tell me, as many white 
people as the United Kingdom and all the colonies of the 
British Empire have now. 

This book is the result of many journeys through Can¬ 
ada. I have visited the Dominion again and again in the 
various stages of its development, and have followed the 
star of the*new nation as it moved ever westward. I have 


i 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


stopped with the French in the St. Lawrence Valley, have 
travelled along the Saskatchewan when the United States 
farmers rushed into the wheat belt, and have seen the 
Klondike and the Yukon when they were still pouring 
streams of gold into the world. 

We of the United States are vitally interested in the 
Canadians. We are largely of the same blood, and the lines 
of our national lives have run along side by side. Thou¬ 
sands of us have relatives in the Dominion, for more than a 
million former American citizens are now living on the other 
side of the border. We have so much faith in Canada that 
our financial investments there are already in excess of two 
thousand million dollars, and our trade with it is more im¬ 
portant to us than that of almost any other part of the world. 

For this reason we shall start out knowing that we shall 
receive everywhere a most cordial welcome. The men 
and women whom we shall meet, for the most part, speak 
our own language, think much the same thoughts, and 
have the same high ideals of life. Indeed, we shall be 
surprised again and again at the vivid realization of our 
great similarity, and the rich inheritance we have received 
from our common ancestors. 

Two empires, by the sea. 

Two peoples, great and free. 

One anthem raise. 

One race of ancient fame, 

One tongue, one faith, we claim; 

One God, whose glorious name 
We love and praise. 


2 



“Canada is a land of untold wealth. Its treasures extend from the 
humming industries of the East to the great forests and fisheries of the 
West, and from the golden wheatfields of the South to the bricks of 
the Klondike gold I saw in the Far North.” 














What John Cabot saw when he discovered the American continent 
were stern cliffs of gray rock such as this near St. John’s, which now has 
a tower erected in his honour, five hundred feet above the water. 







CHAPTER II 


THE KEY TO THE ST. LAWRENCE 

I MAGINE yourself aboard ship with me. We are 
steaming along off the coast of Newfoundland, bound 
north for St. John’s, the capital and chief port of the 
oldest and smallest British dominion. Just before 
daybreak this morning I was awakened by a glaring light 
flashing full in my face. I jumped from my berth and 
looked out of the porthole. As I did so three blasts 
from the whistle tore the air and made the ship tremble, 
and were answered a moment later by the w-h-a-a-n-g 
of a foghorn from over the water. The dazzling light 
that had awakened me flashed around again. I knew 
then that we were saluting Cape Race, the southeast tip of 
Newfoundland, and chief signal station for the ocean traf¬ 
fic of the North Atlantic. 

We were hardly a mile from the shore. If it had been 
daylight, we would have steamed closer in. The light¬ 
house towered high in the air, the flash seeming to come 
from out of the sky. Cape Race light is more than three 
hundred feet above the water, and, with its foghorn and 
the wireless station close by, tells thousands of mariners 
their position at sea. It is usually the first land sighted in 
coming to Canada across the Atlantic, and marks the 
point where practically every vessel in these waters 
changes its course. 

Day has dawned since we passed Cape Race, and we 
3 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


can see for miles over the bright blue ocean, silvered and 
dancing under the sun. The air is so fresh and crisp it 
is almost intoxicating. Even the dolphins, leaping and 
diving in graceful curves beside the ship, seem to share 
our feeling that it is a wonderful morning on which to be 
alive and at sea. 

Now turn to the map in this book, and see just where 
we are. Like most Americans, I had always thought of 
Newfoundland as a sub-arctic country far to the north of 
us. Since leaving New York I have felt like an explorer 
on his way to the Pole. The fact is, however, that we 
have been steaming much more to the east than to the 
north, and are at this moment only about sixteen hundred 
miles from the west coast of Ireland. We have come 
hardly three hundred miles north of New York, but so far 
to the eastward that we are half way to Liverpool. We 
are still south of England, in the same latitude as Paris, 
and are not far from the shoals that form the Grand Banks 
of Newfoundland, famous the world over as cod-fishing 
grounds. Here the bed of the ocean rises to within less 
than five hundred feet of the surface, and the cold arctic 
currents meet the Gulf Stream, causing the fogs so much 
dreaded in this part of the Atlantic. 

As seen on the map, Newfoundland is a triangle of land 
that nearly fills, like a plug, the gaping mouth of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, but it also commands the sea routes of 
the North Atlantic, and its possession by an enemy power 
would menace both Canada and the United States. It has 
an area of forty-two thousand square miles, being larger 
than Ireland and of about the same size as Tennessee. 
At first glance it seems a part of the mainland, but a 
closer look shows the Strait of Belle Isle separating the 
4 


THE KEY TO THE ST. LAWRENCE 


island from the Labrador coast. Though in some places 
only eight or ten miles wide, this strait furnishes a sum¬ 
mer-time passage for transatlantic liners to Canada. 

For some years there has been talk of building a dam 
across the Strait of Belle Isle, to stop the icy waters of the 
Labrador current coming through the Strait into the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence. This, it is claimed, would force the Gulf 
Stream closer to Newfoundland, and give that country 
and eastern Quebec a climate as warm as that of New 
Jersey. How England would fare in this shifting of ocean 
waters no one can say; the history of the world would have 
been vastly different but for the present course of the Gulf 
Stream in relation to the British Isles. However, no one 
has yet offered to pay for this project, and shipping men 
say it would be impossible to make a dam strong enough 
to withstand the enormous pressure of ice, which comes 
down from the arctic every year in great floes of from 
five hundred to one thousand square miles and sometimes 
piles up on shore to the height of a five-story building. 

The Newfoundland coast greatly resembles that of 
Norway. Looking shoreward, we see great headlands 
jutting out into the ocean, their precipitous sides rising 
straight out of the water for three or four hundred feet. 
Between them are deep bays and inlets, walled with sheer 
rock. At the heads of the coves and smaller bays we can 
see the white houses of little villages, clinging to the hill¬ 
sides above tiny beaches. On top, these great rock ridges 
are covered with low scrub, now in red and brown autumn 
dress. 

Now we are approaching St. John’s, which has one of 
the famous natural harbours of the world. Our steamer 
heads for what seems an unbroken wall of rock, five hun- 
5 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


dred feet high, and surmounted by a mighty stone tower. 
This is Cabot Tower,, erected to commemorate the dis¬ 
covery of Newfoundland in 1497 by John Cabot, the Vene¬ 
tian mariner commissioned by Henry VII of England to 
find him new dominions. Except for the Vikings, five 
centuries earlier, Cabot was really the first to discover 
the North American continent, as Columbus did not reach 
the mainland until some years later. 

Just south of the Cabot Tower is Cape Spear, the 
“farthest east” point of all North America. It was on 
these hills that Marconi received the first wireless message 
flashed across the Atlantic, and from them that the first 
transatlantic hydroplane flight was begun. On these 
shores, also, several of our transatlantic cables are 
landed. 

But see, there is an opening in the wall of rock straight 
ahead, and we get a glimpse of the harbour and the city 
beyond. The passage is only six hundred feet wide, and 
it seems much less from the deck of our steamer. Here 
the French, during their brief possession of St. John’s, 
slung chains across the Narrows to prevent the entrance 
of enemy ships. Inside the Narrows, the harbour is 
about a mile long and one half as wide. It is fringed 
with a forest of masts and the smokestacks of steamers. 
On the right is St. John’s. The hill on which it is built 
rises so steeply from the water that we can see the whole 
sides of buildings, one above the other along the terraced 
streets. The painted brick or wooden structures give the 
city a rather drab appearance, which is emphasized by the 
absence of shade trees. This is partly because the town 
has been burned three times, the last time in 1892. Across 
the harbour the red and brown hillside is gashed here and 
6 



Like pirate ships of old, icebergs in spring hover about the rock-bound 
entrance to St. John’s harbour. The channel is so narrow that the French 
once closed it to the British ships by a chain from shore to shore. 







St. John’s, the capital city of Newfoundland, sits high on a hill over¬ 
looking the land-locked harbour. It is the centre of the fishing industry, 
and the commercial metropolis of the island. Its atmosphere is dis¬ 
tinctly British. 












THE KEY TO THE ST. LAWRENCE 


there with the slate gray of stone pits, or splotched with 
fenced-in patches of green, so steep that it is hard to 
imagine how they are farmed. 

St. John’s is not quite as large as Portland, Maine, but 
it is the chief city of Newfoundland and the centre of the 
fishing trade. The whole country has only about a quarter 
of a million inhabitants. It is as though the people of 
Toledo formed the total population of the state of Ohio. 
The Newfoundlanders are a mixture of English, Irish, and 
Scotch, with an occasional trace of French. The original 
Indian inhabitants have practically all disappeared. Most 
of the people worship at the Church of England, though 
Catholics also are numerous. Both denominations have 
cathedrals at St. John’s, the Catholic edifice being especially 
conspicuous as viewed from the harbour. The Methodist 
Church is well established, and there is a sprinkling of 
Congregationalists. Education in Newfoundland is sec¬ 
tarian, each church receiving a grant from the government 
for the support of its schools. There is much rivalry be¬ 
tween the churches, especially in the villages, but I am 
told that some of the Protestants send their children to 
Catholic schools, considering them better. The sons and 
daughters of well-to-do people usually go to England to 
complete their education. 


7 


CHAPTER III 

AROUND ABOUT ST. JOHN’S 

C OME with me for a drive around St. John's. 

We can hire a touring car of almost any make, 
but for novelty we choose a one-horse open 
coach. The grizzled driver tells us times are 
dull with him just now, the taxis getting most of the trade, 
but that he will have the best of it in December, when 
the cars are laid up until spring on account of the snow. 
St. John’s has an average of about four feet of snow in a 
season, but I have seen pictures of the streets snowed in 
to the roofs of the houses. The thermometer rarely falls 
below zero, but once the snows begin, the ground is cov¬ 
ered until April. 

The chief business street of St. John’s is strung out for a 
mile or more just back of the wharves. It is lined on both 
sides with three- and four-story wood and brick build¬ 
ings. Among the most modern is the home for sailormen 
built by the Doctor Grenfell mission of Labrador fame. 
Though the store windows look bright and attractive, 
many of the shops are tiny affairs, and the street seems 
more English than American. 

I notice many branches of Canadian banks, which 
monopolize the banking business of Newfoundland. 
Contrary to the belief of many Americans, Newfoundland 
politically is no more a part of Canada than it is of New 
Zealand. It is a separate dominion of the British Empire, 
8 


AROUND ABOUT ST. JOHN’S 

to which its people are enthusiastically devoted, having 
more than once refused to be federated with Canada. 
They will tell you that the name of their country is 
pronounced with the accent on the last syllable—New- 
foun di-land. 

The main street of St. John’s has a'trolley running prac¬ 
tically its entire length. Whenever the conductor col¬ 
lects a fare, he puts a little ticket in a tiny cash register 
that he carries in his hand. Like all the Newfoundlanders 
I have met, the car men are most courteous. One of them 
left his car to ask a policeman on the corner to direct me to 
the American consulate. Indeed, I like these Newfound¬ 
landers. They are cordial and hospitable and most polite, 
though sometimes I have difficulty in understanding their 
Anglicized speech. 1 was told on the ship that I would see 
none but natural complexions in St. John’s, and as far as I 
have observed that is true, all the girls having bright rosy 
cheeks. Both men and women here are long lived. 

Our driver is now asking us to look at the government 
buildings. They are high up above the harbour and sur¬ 
rounded by beautiful grounds. The party having a 
majority in the lower house of parliament forms the 
government and names the premier and his ministers. 
The upper house, called the Legislative Assembly, con¬ 
sists of twenty-four members appointed by the governor in 
council. The members of the lower house are elected for 
terms of four years and meet every year. While the 
humblest fisherman may be elected to parliament, New¬ 
foundland has not yet granted women the vote. It has 
no divorce laws. 

Our next stop is at the west end of St. John’s, where the 
Waterford River empties into the harbour. Here is a 
9 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


valley covered with truck gardens, and beyond lies a park 
given to the city by one of its titled shipping magnates. 
It is said that spring comes here two weeks earlier than 
in the eastern end of town. The reason for this is that 
while the fogs and the winds from the sea sweep over the 
bluffs at the harbour entrance, they rarely penetrate to 
the valley. 

Driving back to town we pass the station of the New¬ 
foundland Government Railway, a narrow gauge line that 
covers the most important parts of the island. It runs 
far to the north, then to the west shore, and down to Port 
aux Basques at the southwest. Branches jut out here and 
there, linking the port towns with the main line and the 
capital. The greater part of the south shore has no rail¬ 
road, nor is there yet any line into the Barbe Peninsula, 
which extends northward to Belle Isle Strait. There is 
talk of bridging the Strait and connecting Newfoundland 
with Canada by a rail line through northeastern Quebec. 

The manager of the railroad tells me that the New¬ 
foundland line is unique in that its passenger revenues 
exceed its freight earnings. The reason for this is that 
most of the people live near the sea, and the bulk of freight 
goes by water. On the cross country route there are 
many steep grades, for the interior is hilly, although the 
highest point on the island is only two thousand feet above 
sea level. The railroad skirts the shores of hundreds of 
lakes, of which Newfoundland has more than it has found 
time to count. It is estimated that one third of the land 
lies under water. I met a man to-day, just returned from 
a hunting trip forty miles inland, who told me that he had 
stood on a hilltop and counted one hundred lakes and 
ponds in plain sight. He has a friend who has fished in no 


io 


AROUND ABOUT ST. JOHN’S 

less than forty different ponds within a half mile of his 
camp. Grand Lake, on the west side, is more than fifty- 
six miles long, and two others are nearly as large. 

American sportsmen have already discovered in New¬ 
foundland hunting and fishing grounds that rival those of 
Canada, and some of our rich Americans have permanent 
camps along the rivers and streams on the south and the 
west coasts, to which they come every summer for salmon. 
The railroad manager promises that if I will take the train 
across country I shall see herds of caribou from the car 
window. 

Much of the land along the railway has been burned 
over, but nevertheless the country has ten thousand 
square miles of well-timbered land, worth as it stands five 
hundred million dollars. Some is being cut for lumber, 
and more for mine props that go to England and Wales. 
The chief use of the forests at present is to furnish pulp 
wood for news print. Lord Northcliffe built at Grand 
Falls a six-million-dollar plant, operated by water-power, 
to supply his newspapers and magazines, and an even 
larger project, to cost twenty-five million dollars, is now 
under way at the mouth of the Humber River, on the west 
coast. The scenery there is much like that of the fiords of 
Norway. 

The chief agricultural development of Newfoundland 
is on the west side of the island, where stock is raised suc¬ 
cessfully and wintered outdoors. This section of the 
country has produced as much as three million pounds of 
beef or three times as much as the amount imported. 
Newfoundland is not primarily, however, an agricultural 
country. The efforts of the people have always centred 
largely on fishing and related industries. 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Newfoundland has had its gold fevers, especially on 
the coast of Labrador, which it owns. So far, these have 
amounted to nothing. But it has one of the world’s 
largest iron deposits, and at one time this country was an 
important producer of copper. It suffers commercially 
from its handicaps in the way of transportation, and also 
because of its limited supply of capital. 

In studying the map of Newfoundland, I have been in¬ 
terested in its many fanciful names, and wish that I might 
see what inspired them. There are, for example, “ Heart’s 
Content” and '‘Heart’s Ease,” “Bay of Bulls” and 
“Leading Tickle,” “Baldhead” and “Redhead Rocks.” 
“Come by Chance” is a railroad station in eastern New¬ 
foundland, while just to the north is “ Random.” 

Most of the points on the Newfoundland coast were 
named by the early mariners who learned from experience 
rather than charts how to navigate these dangerous shores. 
To help remember sailing directions, they made up little 
rhymes such as this one 1 learned from a schooner captain 
just in from Labrador: 

When Joe Bat’s point you are abreast, 

Fogo Harbour bears due west; 

It’s then your course that you must steer 
Till Brimstone Head do appear, 

And when Old Brimstone do appear, 

Then Dean’s Rock you need not fear. 


12 


CHAPTER IV 


THE COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 

ERHAPS you have thought, as I did before com¬ 



ing here, that fish are fish, all the world over. But 


in Newfoundland fish are cod. The existence of 


the other finny creatures in the sea is recognized, 


but they are referred to only by their proper names. 
There is a story that a Newfoundlander was asked if there 
were any fish in a certain stream. 

“No, there are no fish in here,” was the reply, “nothing 
but trout.” 

The history of Newfoundland is largely the story of its 
cod fisheries and the contests to possess them. Cabot re¬ 
ported to his royal master that the waters off the New¬ 
foundland coast were so thick with fish as to impede navi¬ 
gation. Not long ago cod were so plentiful that dogs 
caught them alive in the water as they were crowded upon 
the beach by the pressure of the thousands behind, and 
to-day the cod fisheries here are the largest of their kind 
in the world. Nine tenths of the people of Newfound¬ 
land still make their living either directly or indirectly 
from fish, and eighty per cent, of the export trade comes 
from them. At one time dried cod formed the national 
currency, and debts were paid in kind. This fall, as for 
many years, thousands of fishermen are paying for their 
spring outfits, and for flour and molasses and pork on which 
they will subsist during the coming winter, with fish. 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

Within a year after Cabot’s voyage, fishermen from 
Devonshire, England, were on the Newfoundland coast, 
and several years later Portuguese and French fishermen 
were competing with them for the right to share in the 
phenomenal catches. Though claimed by the British by 
right of discovery, Newfoundland became a kind of “no 
man’s land.” Its coast was frequented by hordes of dar¬ 
ing men, partly fishermen, partly traders, most of whom 
were not above a little piracy now and then. In 1578, 
four hundred fishing vessels were coming here every year. 
Of these nearly half were French. The English dominated 
even then, and a quarter of a century later ten thou¬ 
sand men and boys from the west counties of England were 
spending their summers in the fisheries, as catchers at sea 
and dryers on shore. 

It is estimated that the annual catch of the English 
vessels was worth one hundred thousand pounds, a huge 
sum in those days. The “Merchant Adventurers” of 
England, who gained most of the profit, tried to set up a 
monopoly. They did their utmost to drive the French 
from the fishing grounds and shore stations, and discour¬ 
aged all attempts to colonize Newfoundland, spreading 
false reports that the country was desolate and uninhabit¬ 
able. At one time there were laws forbidding a fishing 
vessel from taking any settlers to Newfoundland and 
requiring it to bring back to England every man it carried 
away. The “Fishing Admirals,” as the ancient profiteers 
of that industry were called, even secured an order to burn 
the homes of the fishermen on shore. Indeed, it was not 
until 1711 that England changed her cruel policy toward 
Newfoundland and organized the colony under a naval 
government. 


14 



Most of the people of Newfoundland get their living directly or in¬ 
directly from the codfish industry. The bulk of the catch is shipped 
abroad from St. John’s, chiefly to the warm countries of the Mediterranean 
and the West Indies. 












The fisherman’s work has only begun when he has caught the cod. 
After cleaning them, he and his family must spread the fish out to dry 
every day, and stack them up every evening until they are “made.” 







COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 


In the meantime, bitter struggles with the French had 
been going on. The French recognized in Newfoundland 
a key to their possessions in Canada along the Gulf and 
River of St. Lawrence. They succeeded in gaining a foot¬ 
hold on the south shore of Newfoundland, and from there 
frequently attacked the English settlements to the north, 
until the Treaty of Utrecht compelled them to give up 
their holdings. All that remains of French possessions in 
this part of the world are the islands of Miquelon and St. 
Pierre just south of Newfoundland. With the prohibition 
wave that swept over North America, the port of St. Pierre 
has had a great boom as headquarters of the bootlegging 
fleets of the North Atlantic. It has grown rich by taxing 
the liquor traffic, so much so, in fact, that St. John’s is cast¬ 
ing envious eyes at its island neighbour, and making plans 
to get into this profitable trade. 

I had my first glimpse of the native cod as I entered St. 
John’s harbour. Just as our steamer passed a motor dory 
lying off shore, one of the men in her caught a big fish. 
He pulled it out of the water, and after holding it up to 
our view, clubbed it on the head and threw it into the boat. 
To-day I visited one of the fishing villages, where I saw 
the day’s catches landed and talked with the fishermen. 

I took a motor in St. John’s and drove out to Waterford 
Valley, up over the gray rocky hills into the back country. 
On the heights I found a blue pond, just below it another, 
and then another, like so many steps leading from the 
heights down to the sea. The last pond ended in a great 
wooden flume running down the rocky gorge to a little 
power station that supplies electricity to the city of St. 
John’s. 

Here I stopped to take in the view. Before me was a 
15 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

little bay, perhaps a half mile long and a quarter of a mile 
wide, where the stream from the hill ponds empties into 
the ocean. This was Petty Harbour, a typical Newfound¬ 
land “outport.” On both sides of the harbour rocky walls 
rose almost straight up to a height of three or four hundred 
feet. The only outlets were the waters of the tiny bay and 
the gorge through which I came. There was literally no 
level land, only a few narrow shelves and terraces along the 
sides of the hills. There were no streets, only a winding 
roadway down the slope. The lower portion was too 
narrow for our motor, so that I had to go part of the way 
down on foot. The houses were placed every which way 
on the steep hillsides. Most of them had tiny dooryards, 
with a patch of grass and sometimes a few flowers in front. 
Behind them, or at the sides, were other patches of green, 
on some of which small black and white goats, wearing 
pokes about their necks, were feeding. Small as were the 
houses, each was neatness itself and shiny with paint. 
Every one of the hundred or so houses was built by its oc¬ 
cupant or his father before him. Indeed, I am prepared 
to believe, after what I have seen, that the Newfoundland 
fisherman is the world's greatest “ handy man." He builds 
not only his house, but also his boats, landing stages, and 
fish-drying platforms; he makes his own nets, raises his 
own vegetables, and often has a sheep or two to furnish 
wool, which his wife will spin and weave into a suit of 
clothes or a jersey. 

Walk along with me the rest of the way down to the 
waterside. You must step carefully on the path that leads 
over and between the ridges of out-cropping rock. Behind 
us a troop of youngsters are proving themselves true citi¬ 
zens of the kingdom of boyhood by tooting the horn of our 
16 


COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 


motor. I notice many children playing about, and I ask 
where they go to school. In reply two little frame buildings 
are pointed out on the hillsides, one the Church of England 
school, and the other maintained by the Catholics. The 
children we see look happy and well fed, and the little 
girls especially are neatly dressed and attractive. 

But here is a fisherman, drying cod, who offers to show 
us about. With him we clamber down to the nearest 
stage, built out over the rocks, its far end resting in water 
that is deep enough for the boats. The stages are built 
of spruce poles and look like cliff-dwellers’ homes. At 
the end nearest the water is a little landing platform, with 
steps leading down to the motor dory moored alongside. 

A boat has come in with a load of fish. They are speared 
one by one and tossed up to the landing stage, while one of 
the men starts cleaning them to show us how it is done. 
He first cuts the throat to the backbone, breaks off the 
head against the edge of the bench, and then rips open the 
belly. He tosses the liver to the table and the other or¬ 
gans to the floor, cuts out the greater part of the backbone, 
and throws the split, flattened-out cod into a tub at his 
feet. It is all done in a few seconds. 

Outside there is now a great heap of cod. This fish has 
a gray-greenish back, a white belly, and a great gaping 
mouth lined with a broad band of teeth so fine that to the 
touch they feel like a file. One big fellow a yard long 
weighs, we are told, perhaps twenty-five pounds, but most 
of them will average but ten or twelve pounds. 

These fish were caught in a net, or trap. When set 
in the water the cod trap measures about sixty feet square. 
It is moored in the sea near the shore. The fish swim into 
the enclosure, are caught within its walls, and cannot make 
17 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


their way out. The size of the meshes is limited by law, 
so that the young fish may escape. Three fourths of the 
Newfoundland cod are taken in this manner. Fish traps 
may cost from six hundred to one thousand dollars each, 
and making them is the chief winter job of the fishermen. 

Sometimes the cod are caught with trawls, or lines, per¬ 
haps three or four thousand feet long, with short lines tied 
on at every six feet. The short lines carry hooks, which 
are baited one by one, and the whole is then set in the ocean 
with mooring buoys at each end. The trawls are hauled 
up every day to remove the fish that have been caught, and 
to bait up again. 

I had thought a fisherman’s work done when he brought 
in his catch, but that is really only the beginning. The 
Newfoundland fisherman has nothing he can turn into 
money until his fish are salted and dried. The drying 
process may take a month or longer if the weather is bad. 
It is called “making” the fish. The flat split fish are 
spread out upon platforms called “flakes.” The sun 
works the salt down into the flesh, at the same time re¬ 
moving the moisture. Every evening each fish must be 
picked up and put in a pile under cover, and then re-spread 
on the flakes in the morning. The children are a great 
help in this part of the work. 

It is in the perfection of the drying, rather than by size, 
that fish are graded for the market. At one of the fish 
packing wharves in St. John’s, I saw tons of dried cod 
stacked up like so much cord wood. They all looked alike 
to me, but the manager said: 

“Now, the fish in this pile are for Naples, those in that 
for Spain, and those on the other side of the room will be 
sent to Brazil. It would never do to mix them, as our 
18 



Wherever there is a slight indentation on the high rock-faced coast 
you will find a fishing village with its landing stages and drying “flakes,” 
built of spruce poles and boughs, clinging to the steep shore. 




,, „ ». V 


4 HI 1/ HIM» 




. 


w 


rV-S 


»#i« ; 


■- *.- 



Arrived at the ice fields, the seal hunters armed with spiked poles 
scatter over the pack. They kill for their hides and fat the baby seals 
which every spring are born on the ice of the far north Atlantic. 



Caribou are plentiful in Newfoundland. They are often seen from 
the train on the railroad journey across the country. The interior has 
thousands of lakes, one third of the island lying under water. 





COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 


customers in each country have their own taste. Some 
like their fish hard, and some soft, and there are other dif¬ 
ferences we have to keep in mind as we sort the fish and 
grade them for export. The poorest fish, those you see in 
the corner, are for the West Indies. The people there 
nearly live on our fish, which will keep in their hot cli¬ 
mate, but they can’t afford to buy the best quality.” 

Newfoundland exports more than one hundred and 
twenty million pounds of dried cod every year. Brazil, 
Italy, Spain, and Portugal take about ninety million 
pounds, while the West Indies, Canada, Greece, and the 
United States absorb the balance. The fish are exported 
in casks each containing about two and a half quintals, or 
two hundred and eighty pounds. 

While the shore fisheries account for most of the annual 
Newfoundland catch, there are two other ways of taking 
cod. The first is the “bank fishery,” in which schooners 
go off to the Grand Banks where they put out men in 
small boats to fish with hook and line until a shipload is 
caught. The fish are cleaned and salted on board, but 
are dried on shore. The crews of the schooners usually 
share in the catch, as in our own Gloucester fishing fleets. 
The third kind is the Labrador fishery. Sometimes as 
many as nine hundred schooners will spend the summer on 
the Labrador coast, fishing off shore, and drying the 
catches on the beach. Whole families take part in this 
annual migration. Labrador fish do not, however, bring 
as good a price as Banks or offshore fish. 

The prosperity of the Newfoundlanders depends every 
year on the price of cod. This may range from three dol¬ 
lars a quintal to the record prices of fourteen and fifteen 
dollars during the World War. Just now the price is de- 
19 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


pressed, and Newfoundland is feeling competition from the 
Norwegians, who are underselling them in the western 
European and Mediterranean markets. Consequently, 
many Newfoundlanders, especially the young people, are 
emigrating to the United States. Some of the men go to 
New England and engage in the Massachusetts fisheries. 
Others ship on merchant vessels, while the girls are at¬ 
tracted by high wages paid in our stores, offices, and fac¬ 
tories. 

I have made some inquiries about the earnings of the 
Newfoundland fisherman, and find his net cash income 
amounts to but three or four hundred dollars a year. 
While he builds his own boat, he has to buy his engine, 
gasoline, and oil. He must buy twine and pitch for his 
nets, cord and hooks for his baited lines, and salt for 
pickling. A fisherman usually figures on making enough 
from the cod livers and their oil to pay his salt bill. The 
bones and entrails and also the livers after the oil has been 
removed are used as fertilizer. 

The fisherman usually has no other source of income 
than his catch, and during the winter he does little except 
prepare for the next season. He goes in debt to the mer¬ 
chant who furnishes his outfit and the supplies for his 
family. His catch for the year may or may not bring as 
much as the amount he owes, but he must deliver it, at the 
current price, to the firm that gave him credit. This sys¬ 
tem accounts for the big stores in St. John’s, some of which 
have made a great deal of money. The merchants render 
a real service in financing the fishermen, whom they carry 
through the lean years, but there are those who believe the 
credit system has outlived its usefulness. 

Some years ago a farmer-fisherman-mechanic named 


20 


COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 


William Coaker organized the Fishermen’s Protective 
Union, with local councils in the outports. The union 
organized cooperative companies that now buy and sell 
fish, build ships, and handle supplies of all kinds. It 
even built a water-power plant to furnish electricity at cost 
to light the men’s homes. A new town, called Port Union, 
was developed on the northeast coast. This has become 
the centre of the Union activities, and there its organizer, 
now Sir William Coaker, spends his time. The Union 
publishes a daily paper in St. John’s. Its editor tells me 
that in the last ten years the dividend rate paid by the 
F. P. U. companies was ten per cent, for eight years, eight 
per cent, for one year, and none at all for only one year. 
The Union went into politics, and for three elections has 
had eleven members in the lower house. By combination 
with other groups this bloc has held the balance of 
power. While the Union has a strong voice in the govern¬ 
ment, the conservative business houses seem to be the 
dominant influence here in St. John’s, where, quite natu¬ 
rally, the fishermen’s organization finds little favour. 

St. John’s is the centre for the Newfoundland sealing 
industry. This is not the seal that yields my lady’s fine 
furs, but the hair seal, which is killed chiefly for its fat, 
although the skin is used to make bags, pocketbooks, and 
other articles of leather. The oil made from the fat is used 
as an illuminant, a lubricant, and also for some grades of 
margarine. 

The annual seal hunt starts from St. John’s on March 
13th. The sealing steamers carry from two hundred to 
three hundred and fifty men each, packed aboard like sar¬ 
dines in a can. The vessels make for the great ice floes 
off the northeast coast, and it is on the ice that the seals 


21 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


are taken. The animals spend the winter in waters farther 
south, but assemble in enormous herds each January and 
start north toward the ice. Within forty-eight hours after 
reaching the ice-field, some three hundred thousand mother 
seals give birth to as many babies. The baby seals gain 
weight at the rate of four pounds a day, and rapidly take 
on a coating of fat about two and a half inches thick. 
When they are six weeks old, they leave their parents and 
start swimming north. It is a matter of record that the 
parents reach the ice and the young are born in almost 
the same spot in the ocean, and on almost the same day, 
year after year. 

I visited one of the sealers. It happened to be the 
Terra Nova , the ship in which Captain Scott explored 
the Antarctic. It was a black craft, designed to work in 
the ice-fields and carry the maximum number of men and 
seals. I held in my hands one of the six-foot poles, called 
“bats/' with which the seals are clubbed to death on the 
ice. Once the ship reaches the ice-pack, the hunting par¬ 
ties scramble overboard and make a strike for the seals. 
The ice is usually rough and broken, and a man must make 
sure that he can get back to his ship. Each hunter kills 
as many seals as he can, strips off the skin and layer of fat, 
and leaves the carcass on the ice. The skins and fat are 
brought back to the ship. The baby seals are the ones 
that are preferred, for since they feed only on their mothers' 
milk, the oil from their fat is the best. Seal hunting is 
exciting and dangerous work while it lasts, though from a 
sporting standpoint baby seals can hardly be considered 
big game. 

The start of the annual seal hunt is a great occasion for 
St. John's. Two thirds of the proceeds of each catch are 


22 



During the winter season the red iron ore from the Wabana mines 
is stored in huge piles. In the summer it is shipped by steamer to the 
company’s steel mills in Nova Scotia. 








The annual race between schooners of the rival fleets from Nova Scotia 
and Gloucester, Massachusetts, is a unique sporting event. Every other 
year the contenders meet on a course off Halifax harbour. 




COD FISHERIES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 


divided among the crew, the steamer owner taking the 
balance. It is an old saying in Newfoundland that “a 
man will go hunting seals when gold will not draw him.” 
The ships usually return by the middle of April. In a 
good year each man may get about one hundred and fifty 
dollars as his share. 

From one hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand 
seals are brought into St. John’s every year. At the fac¬ 
tories gangs of skinners strip off the fat from the hides as 
fast as they are landed. Sometimes one man will strip as 
many as six hundred and forty skins in a day. The fat is 
chopped up and steam cooked, and the oil drawn off into 
casks. The skins are salt dressed. 

One might think the seals would be wiped out by such 
methods, but the herd does not decrease and remains at 
about one million from year to year. The seals live largely 
on codfish, each one eating an average of four every day. 
The estimated consumption of cod by the seals is fourteen 
times greater than the number caught by the fishermen. 


23 


CHAPTER V 


IRON MINES UNDER THE SEA 

I HAVE just returned from a trip through caves richer 
than those of Aladdin. They lie far under the ocean, 
and their treasures surpass the wildest dreams of the 
Arabian Nights. The treasures are in iron ore, from 
forty nine to fifty two per cent, pure, and so abundant that 
they will be feeding steel mills for many generations to 
come. 

I am speaking of the Wabana iron mines, located on, or 
rather under, Conception Bay on the southeast coast of 
Newfoundland. They are on an island seven miles long, 
three miles in width, and three hundred feet high. Along 
about a generation ago deposits of rich hematite ores were 
discovered in veins that ran down under the water with 
a slope of about fifteen degrees. They were gradually 
developed and within the last thirty years millions of tons 
of ore have been taken out. The under-sea workshops 
have been extended more than two miles out from the shore 
and it is believed that the great ore body crosses the bay. 
The capacity yield at this time averages about five thou¬ 
sand tons for every working day of the year, and the loca¬ 
tion is such that the ore can be put on the steamers for ex¬ 
port almost at the mouth of the mines. The property is 
owned by the British Empire Steel Company, made up of 
British, American, and Canadian capital. 

But let me tell you of my trip. I left my hotel in St. 
24 


IRON MINES UNDER THE SEA 

John’s in the early morning. The rocky promontories 
that form the narrow entrance to the harbour were can¬ 
opied in light fog, under which fishing schooners could be 
seen tacking back and forth, beating their way out to the 
open sea beyond. As we drove out over the hills the mois¬ 
ture gathered on the windshield of the motor-car so that we 
had to raise it and take the fog-soaked air full in our faces. 
We went through King’s Road, where many of the aristoc¬ 
racy of St. John’s reside in big frame houses with many 
bay windows and much gingerbread decoration. They 
were set well back from the street, and, in contrast with 
most of the houses of the town, were surrounded by trees. 

As we reached the open country, rolling hills stretched 
away in the mist. They were gray with rock or red-brown 
with scrub. Here and there were patches of bright green, 
marking vegetable gardens or tiny pastures for a cow or 
goat. The growing season in Newfoundland is short, and 
the number of vegetables that can be successfully raised is 
limited. I saw patches of cabbages, turnips, and beets, 
and several fields of an acre or more that had yielded crops 
of potatoes. Most of the fields were small, and some no 
bigger than dooryards. All were fenced in with spruce 
sticks. The houses were painted white, and had stones 
or turf banked up around their foundations. A few farms 
had fairly large barns, but most had no outbuildings ex¬ 
cept a vegetable cellar built into a hillside or half-sunk in 
the ground. 

Newfoundlanders follow the English fashion of driving 
on the left-hand side of the road. It made me a bit nerv¬ 
ous, at first, whenever we approached another vehicle. 
It seemed certain that we would run into it unless we swung 
to the right, but of course it always moved to the left, giv- 

25 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


ing us room on what an American thinks of as the “wrong 
side of the road.” 

We met an occasional motor-car, and many buggies, but 
every few minutes we passed the universal vehicle of New¬ 
foundland, the two-wheeled “long cart,” as it is called. 
Strictly speaking, it is not a cart at all, in our sense of 
the word, as it has no floor or sides. It consists of a flat, 
rectangular frame of rough-hewn poles, balanced like a 
see-saw across an axle joining two large wooden wheels. 
The long cart is the common carrier of all Newfoundland. 
It is used on the farms, in the towns, and in the fishing vil¬ 
lages. One of these carts was carrying barrels of cod liver 
oil to the refinery at St. John’s, while on another, a farmer 
and his wife sat sidewise, balancing themselves on the tilt¬ 
ing frame. 

After a drive of ten miles we reached Portugal Cove, 
where I waited on the wharf for the little steamer that was 
to take me to Bell Island, three miles out in the Bay. The 
men of the village were pulling ashore the boat of one of 
their number who had left the day before to try his luck in 
the States. The boat was heavy, and seemed beyond 
their strength. Some one called out: “Come on, Mr. 
Chantey Man, give us Johnny Poker,” whereupon one of 
the men led in a song. On the last word, they gave a 
mighty shout and a mighty pull. The boat moved, and in 
a moment was high and dry on the beach. 

This was the chantey they sang: 

Oh, me Johnny Poker, 

And we’ll work to roll her over. 

And it’s Oh me Johnny Poker all . 

The big pull comes with a shout on the final word “all.” 

After a few minutes on the little mine steamer, I saw 
2 6 


IRON MINES UNDER THE SEA 


Bell Island loom up out of the fog. Its precipitous shore 
rose up as high and steep as the side of a skyscraper, but 
black and forbidding through the gray mist. I was won¬ 
dering how I could ever reach the top of the island when I 
saw a tiny box car resting on tracks laid against the cliff 
side, steeper than the most thrilling roller coaster. The car 
is hauled up the incline by a cable operated by an electric 
hoist at the top of the hill. I stepped inside, and by hold¬ 
ing on to a rail overhead was able to keep my feet all the 
way up. Nearly everybody and everything coming to 
Bell Island is carried up and down in this cable car. 

From the top of the cliff, I drove across the island to¬ 
ward the mines, and had all the way a fine view of the 
property. The mine workings are spread out over an area 
about five miles long and two miles in width. The houses 
of the miners are little box-like affairs, with tiny yards. 
Those owned by the company are alike, but those built by 
the miners themselves are in varying patterns. 

The miners are nearly all native Newfoundlanders. 
They are paid a minimum wage, with a bonus for produc¬ 
tion over a given amount, so that the average earnings at 
present are about three dollars and fifty cents a day. 
When the mines are working at capacity, about eighteen 
hundred men are employed. 

The offices of the company occupy a large frame struc¬ 
ture. In one side of the manager’s room is a great win¬ 
dow that commands a view of the works. Looking out, 
my eye was caught first by a storage pile of red ore higher 
than a six- or seven-story building. No ore is shipped dur¬ 
ing the winter because of the ice in the Bay, and the heavy 
snows that block the narrow gauge cable railway from 
the mines to the pier. Also, since the ore is wet as it comes 

27 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


out of the mine, it freezes during the three-mile trip across 
the island. This makes it hard to dump and load. An¬ 
other difficulty about winter operations above ground 
comes from the high winds that sweep over the island, 
sometimes with a velocity of eighty miles an hour. 

With the manager I walked through the village, passing 
several ore piles, to one of the shaft houses. Trains of 
cars are hauled by cable from the depths of the mine to the 
top of the shaft house, where their contents are dumped 
into the crusher. From the crusher the broken rock is 
loaded by gravity into other cars and run off to the storage 
piles or down to the pier. The cable railways and crush¬ 
ers are operated by electricity, generated with coal from 
the company’s mines at Sydney, Nova Scotia. The same 
power is used to operate the fans that drive streams of 
fresh air into the mines and to work the pumps that lift 
the water out of the tunnels. 

At the shaft house I put on a miner’s working outfit, 
consisting of a suit of blue overalls, rubber boots, and a 
cap with its socket above the visor for holding a lamp. 
These miners’ lamps are like the old bicycle lanterns, only 
smaller. The lower part is filled with broken carbide, on 
which water drips from a reservoir above and forms acety¬ 
lene gas. 

I was amazed at the ore trains that came shooting up 
out of the mine at from thirty to forty miles an hour, and 
trembled at the thought of sliding down into the earth at 
such speed, but my guide gave the “slow” signal and we 
began our descent at a more moderate rate. 

I sat on the red, muddy bottom of an empty ore car. 
My feet reached almost to the front and I could just com¬ 
fortably grasp the tops of the sides with my hands. It 
28 


IRON MINES UNDER THE SEA 


was like sitting upright in a bathtub. As we plunged into 
the darkness, the car wheels roared and rattled like those 
of a train in a subway. My guide shouted in my ear that 
the shaft was fifteen feet wide, and about eight feet from 
ceiling to floor. I noticed that some of the timber props 
were covered with a sort of fungus that looked like frost 
or white cotton, while here and there water trickling out 
of the rock glistened in the light of our lamps. 

As we descended the air grew colder. It had a damp 
chill that bit to the bone, and though our speed kept in¬ 
creasing there seemed to be no end to the journey. Sud¬ 
denly, out of the darkness I saw three dancing lights. 
Were they signals to us of some danger ahead? Another 
moment, and the lights proved to be lamps in the caps of 
three miners, drillers who had finished their work for the 
day and were toiling their way up the steep grade to the 
world of fresh air and warm sunshine. 

Another light appeared ahead. Our train slowed up 
and stopped on a narrow shelf deep down in the earth and 
far under the ocean. Just ahead, the track plunged 
steeply down again into the darkness. We were at the 
station where the underground trains are controlled by 
electric signals. On each side curved rails and switches 
led off into branching tunnels. 

For an hour or more we walked about in the under-sea 
workings. At times we were in rock-walled rooms where 
not a sound could be heard but the crunch of the slippery 
red ore under our rubber-booted feet, or the sound of water 
rushing down the steep inclines. At other times the rock 
chambers reverberated with the chugging and pounding of 
the compressed air drills boring their way into the rock. 

We went to the head of a new chamber where a gang was 
29 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


loading ore into the cars. There was a great scraping and 
grinding of shovels against the flinty rock as the men bent 
their backs to their work. The miners’ faces were streaked 
with sweat and grimy with smears of the red ore. I picked 
up a piece. It was not as big as a dinner plate, but was al¬ 
most as heavy as lead. 

We rode out of the mine at top speed. Upon reaching 
the surface, the air of the chilly foggy day felt positively 
hot, while the sunlight seemed almost unreal after the 
dampness below. 


30 



Halifax has a fine natural harbour well protected by islands and with 
sufficient deep water anchorage for great fleets. The port is handicapped, 
however, by the long rail haul from such centres of population as Montreal 
and Toronto. 















Cape Breton Island has a French name, but it is really the land of the 
Scotch, where village pastors often preach in Gaelic, and the names in 
their flocks sound like a gathering of the clans. 






CHAPTER VI 


THE MARITIME PROVINCES 

I HAVE come into Canada through the Maritime 
Provinces, which lie on the Atlantic Coast between 
our own state of Maine and the mouth of the St. Law¬ 
rence. The Provinces are Nova Scotia, New Bruns¬ 
wick, and Prince Edward Island. Their area is almost 
equal to that of our six New England states, and in climate 
and scenery they are much the same. Their population, 
however, is only about one million, or little more than one 
fourth as many as the number of people living in Massa¬ 
chusetts. These provinces were the first British posses¬ 
sions in Canada, and like New England they have seen the 
centre of population and progress move ever westward. 

Nova Scotia is the easternmost province of the Domin¬ 
ion of Canada. Its capital and chief city is Halifax, situ¬ 
ated on the Atlantic on one of the world’s best natural 
harbours. This is a deep water inlet ten miles in length, 
which is open all the year round. Montreal and Quebec 
are closed to navigation during the winter months on ac¬ 
count of the freezing of the St. Lawrence. 

Halifax is six hundred miles closer to Europe than is 
New York, and nearer Rio de Janeiro than is New Or¬ 
leans. As the eastern terminus of the Canadian Na¬ 
tional Railways, it has direct connections with all Canada. 
With these advantages, the city hopes to become one of 
the great shipping centres on the North Atlantic. 

3i 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Halifax has long been noted as the most English city in 
Canada. It was once the military, naval, and political 
centre of British North America, and gay with the social 
life of British officers and their ladies. Now, both the 
warships and the soldiers are gone, and the city is devot¬ 
ing itself to commercial activities. 

As we steamed past the lighthouses and the hidden guns 
on the headlands guarding the entrance, I was reminded 
of all that this harbour has meant to America. The city 
was founded by Lord Cornwallis in 1749 at the suggestion 
of Boston merchants who complained that the French were 
using these waters as a base for their sea raiders. Less 
than thirty years later it provided a haven for Lord Howe 
when he was driven out of Boston by our soldiers of the 
Revolution, and became the headquarters for the British 
operations against the struggling colonies. In the war of 
1812, the American warship Chesapeake was brought here 
after her defeat by the British frigate Shannon. During 
our Civil War Halifax served as a base for blockade run¬ 
ners, and the fortunes of some of its wealthy citizens of 
to-day were founded on the profits of this dangerous trade. 
No one dreamed then that within two generations England 
and America would be fighting side by side in a World War, 
that thousands of United States soldiers would sail from 
Halifax for the battlefields of Europe, or that an American 
admiral, commanding a fleet of destroyers, would establish 
his headquarters here. Yet that is what happened in 
1917-18. All that now remains of the former duels on the 
sea is the annual sailing race between the fastest schooners 
of the Gloucester and the Nova Scotia fishing fleets. 

Halifax is built on a hillside that rises steeply from the 
water-front to a height of two hundred and sixty feet above 
32 


THE MARITIME PROVINCES 


the harbour. The city extends about halfway up the hill, 
and reaches around on both sides of it. The top is a bare, 
grassy mound, surmounted by an ancient citadel. 

Stand with me on the edge of the old moat, and look 
down upon Halifax and its harbour. Far to our left is 
the anchorage where occurred one of the greatest explo¬ 
sions the world ever knew. Just as the city was eating 
breakfast on the morning of December 6, 1917, a French 
munitions ship, loaded with benzol and TNT, collided with 
another vessel leaving the harbour, and her cargo of ex¬ 
plosives blew up in a mighty blast. Nearly two thousand 
people were killed, six thousand were injured, and eleven 
thousand were made homeless. Hardly a pane of glass was 
left in a window, and acres of houses were levelled to the 
ground. A deck gun was found three miles from the water, 
and the anchor of one of the vessels lies in the woods six 
miles away, where it was thrown by the explosion. A 
street-car conductor was blown through a second-story 
window, and a sailor hurled from his ship far up the hill¬ 
side. Since then much of the devastated area has been re¬ 
built along approved town-planning lines, but the scars 
of the disaster are still visible. For a long time after the 
explosion, the local institution for the blind was filled to 
capacity, and one saw on the streets many persons wear¬ 
ing patches over one eye. 

Standing on the hill across the harbour one sees the 
town of Dartmouth, where much of the industrial activity 
of the Halifax district is centred. There are the largest 
oil works, chocolate factories, and sugar refineries of 
Canada. Vessels from Mexico, South America, and the 
British West Indies land their cargoes of tropical prod¬ 
ucts at the doors of the works. Fringing the water-front 
33 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


are the masts of sailing vessels and the smokestacks of 
steamers. Among the latter is a cable repair ship, just in 
from mending a break in one of the many submarine tele¬ 
graph lines that land on this coast. Next to her is a giant 
new liner, making her first stop here to add to her cargo 
some twenty-five thousand barrels of apples from the 
Annapolis Valley. This valley, on the western side of 
Nova Scotia, is known also as “Evangeline Land.” It 
was made famous by Longfellow’s poem based on the ex¬ 
pulsion of the French Acadians by the English because 
they insisted on being neutral in the French-British wars. 
It is one of the finest apple-growing districts in the world, 
and sends annually to Europe nearly two million barrels. 
Many descendants of the former French inhabitants have 
now returned to the land of their ancestors. 

Looking toward the mouth of the harbour, we see the 
new terminal, a twenty-five million dollar project that 
has for some years stood half completed. Here are miles 
and miles of railroad tracks, and giant piers equipped with 
modern machinery, a part of the investment the Dominion 
and its government-owned railway system have made to 
establish Halifax as a first-class port. Beyond the port 
works another inlet, Northwest Arm, makes its way in 
between the hills. I have motored out to its wooded 
shores, which in summer time are crowded with the young 
people of Halifax, bathing and boating. It is the city’s 
chief playground and a beautiful spot. 

But now take a look at the city itself, stretching along 
the water-front below where we stand. The big red brick 
building just under our feet is the municipal market. 
There, on Saturdays, one may see an occasional Indian, 
survivor of the ancient Micmacs, and Negroes who are 
34 


THE MARITIME PROVINCES 


descendants of slaves captured by the British in Maryland 
when they sailed up the Potomac and burned our Capitol. 
Farther down the hillside are the business buildings of the 
city, none of them more than five stories high, and all some¬ 
what weatherbeaten. I have seen no new construction 
under way in downtown Halifax; the city seems to have 
missed the building booms of recent years. Most of the 
older houses are of stone or brick. Outside the business 
district the people live in wooden frame houses, each with 
its bit of yard around it. One would know Halifax for an 
English town by its chimney pots. Some of the houses 
have batteries of six or eight of these tiles set on end stick¬ 
ing out of their chimneys. 

The streets are built on terraces cut in the hillside, or 
plunging down toward the water. Some of them are so 
narrow that they have room for only a single trolley track, 
on which are operated little one-man cars. I stepped 
for a moment into St. Paul's Church, the first English house 
of worship in Canada. Its front pew, to the left of the 
centre aisle, is reserved for the use of royal visitors. 
Passing one of the local newspaper offices, I noticed a big 
crowd that filled the street, watching an electric score 
board that registered, play by play, a World Series baseball 
game going on in New York. The papers are full of base¬ 
ball talk, and the people of this Canadian province seem 
to follow the game as enthusiastically as our fans at home. 

My nose will long remember Halifax. In lower Hollis 
Street, just back from the water-front, and not far from 
the low gray stone buildings that once quartered British 
officers, I smelled a most delicious aroma. It was from 
a group of importing houses, where cinnamon, cloves, and 
all the products of the East Indies are ground up and 

35 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


packed for the market. If I were His Worship, the Mayor 
of Halifax, I should propose that Hollis street be renamed 
and called the Street of the Spices. Just below this sweet- 
scented district, I came to a tiny brick building, with a 
sign in faded letters reading “S. Cunard & Co., Coal Mer¬ 
chants/' This firm is the corporate lineal descen¬ 
dant of Samuel Cunard, who, with his partners, established 
the first transatlantic steamship service nearly a century 
ago, and whose name is now carried all over the world by 
some of the greatest liners afloat. 

Another odour of the water-front is not so sweet as the 
spices. It is the smell of salt fish, which here are dried 
on frames built on the roofs near the docks. Nova Scotia 
is second only to Newfoundland in her exports of dried cod, 
and all her fisheries combined earn more than twelve mil¬ 
lion dollars a year. They include cod, haddock, mack¬ 
erel, herring, halibut, pollock, and salmon. Lunenburg, 
down the coast toward Boston, is one of the centres of the 
deep-sea fishing industry, and its schooners compete on the 
Grand Banks with those from Newfoundland, Gloucester, 
and Portugal. 

I talked in Halifax with the manager of a million-dollar 
corporation that deals in fresh fish. He was a Gloucester 
man who, as he put it, “has had fish scales on his boots” 
ever since he could remember. 

“We operate from Canso, the easternmost tip of Nova 
Scotia,” he said. “Our steamers make weekly trips to 
the fishing grounds, where they take the fish with nets. 
They are equipped with wireless, and we direct their 
operations from shore in accordance with market con¬ 
ditions. While the price of salt fish is fairly steady, fresh 
fish fluctuates from day to day, depending on the quanti- 
36 


THE MARITIME PROVINCES 


ties caught and the public taste. Such fish as we cannot 
sell immediately, we cure in our smoking and drying 
plants. 

“All our crews share in the proceeds of their catch, and 
the captains get no fixed wages at all. We could neither 
catch the fish nor sell them at a profit without the fullest 
cooperation on the part of our men, most of whom come 
from across the Atlantic, from Denmark, Norway, and 
Sweden, and also from Iceland. Next to the captain, the 
most important man on our ships is the cook. Few fish 
are caught unless the fishermen are well fed. The ‘cook's 
locker' is always full of pies, cakes, and cookies, to which 
the men help themselves, and the coffee-pot must be kept 
hot for all hands to ‘mug up.'" 

From Halifax I crossed Nova Scotia by rail into the 
adjoining province of New Brunswick. Nova Scotia 
is a peninsula that seems to have been tacked on to the 
east coast of Canada. It is three hundred and seventy- 
four miles long, and so narrow that no point in it is more 
than thirty miles from the sea. The coast does not run 
due north and south, but more east and west, so that its 
southernmost tip points toward Boston. The Bay of 
Fundy separates it from the coasts of Maine and New 
Brunswick, and leaves only an isthmus, in places not more 
than twenty miles wide, connecting Nova Scotia with 
the mainland. The lower or westernmost half of the 
province is encircled with railroads, which carry every year 
increasing thousands of tourists and hunters from the 
United States. The summer vacationists and the artists 
go chiefly to the picturesque shore towns, while those who 
come up for hunting and fishing strike inland to the lakes 
and woods. Deer and moose are still so plentiful in Nova 
37 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

Scotia that their meat is served at Halifax hotels during the 
season. 

The scenery is much like that of Maine. Rolling hills 
alternate with ledges of gray rock, while at every few miles 
there are lakes and ponds. Much of the country is cov¬ 
ered with spruce, and many of the farms have hedges and 
tall windbreaks of those trees. The farmhouses are large 
and well built; they are usually situated on high ground 
and surrounded by sloping fields and pastures consider¬ 
ably larger than the farm lots of New England. In some 
places the broad hills are shaped like the sand dunes of 
Cape Cod. At nearly every station freshly cut lumber 
was piled up, awaiting shipment, while one of the little 
rivers our train crossed was filled with birch logs floating 
down to a spool factory. 

Some two hours from Halifax we came to Truro at the 
head of Cobequid Bay, the easternmost arm of the Bay of 
Fundy. Scientists who have studied the forty-foot Fundy 
tides attribute them to its pocket-like shape. The tides 
are highest in the numerous deep inlets at the head of the 
Bay. In the Petitcodiac River, which forms the northern¬ 
most arm, as the tide comes in a wall of water two or three 
feet high rushes upstream. These tides are felt far back 
from the coast. The rivers and streams have deep-cut 
banks on account of the daily inrush and outflow of waters 
and are bordered with marshes through which run irriga¬ 
tion ditches dug by the farmers. 

Truro is a turning-off point for the rail journey down 
the Bay side of Nova Scotia through “Evangeline Land” 
and the Annapolis Valley, and also for the trip north and 
east up to Cape Breton Island. This island is part of the 
province of Nova Scotia. It is separated from the main- 
38 



With his poem of Evangeline , Longfellow made famous the old well at 
Grand Pre, the scene of the expulsion of the Acadians because they 
wanted to remain neutral in the French-British wars. 



When the tide goes out at Digby, vessels tied to the docks are left 
high and dry. At some points on the Bay of Fundy the rise and fall of 
the water exceeds forty feet. 









Because of the deep snows in winter the Quebec farmhouse usually has 
high porches and often a bridge from the rear leading to the upper floor 
of the barn. The older houses are built of stone. 



Spinning wheels and hand looms are still in use among the French 
Canadian farm women. Besides supplying clothes for their families, 
they make also homespuns and rugs for sale. 











THE MARITIME PROVINCES 


land only by the mile-wide Strait of Canso, across which 
railroad trains are carried on ferries. In the southern part 
of the Island is the Bras d’Or Lake, an inland sea covering 
two hundred and forty square miles. 

Though Cabot landed on the coast of Cape Breton Is¬ 
land after his discovery of the Newfoundland shore, it 
later fell into the hands of the French. They found its 
fisheries worth more than all the gold of Peru or Mexico. 
To protect the sea route to their St. Lawrence territories, 
they built at Louisburg a great fortress that cost a sum 
equal to twenty-five million dollars in our money. To¬ 
day, hardly one stone remains upon another, as the works 
were destroyed by the British in 1758. Not far from 
Louisburg is Glace Bay, where Marconi continued the 
wireless experiments begun in Newfoundland, and it was 
on this coast, also, that the first transatlantic cable was 
landed. 

Cape Breton Island was settled mostly by Scotch, and 
even to-day sermons in the churches are often delivered in 
Gaelic. As a result of intermarriage sometimes half the 
people of a village bear the same family name. For gen¬ 
erations these people lived mostly by fishing, but the open¬ 
ing of coal mines in the Sydney district brought many of 
them into that industry. The Sydney mines, which nor¬ 
mally employ about ten thousand men, are the only coal 
deposits on the continent of North America lying di¬ 
rectly on the Atlantic Coast. They are an asset of im¬ 
mense value to Canada, yielding more than one third of 
her total coal production. One of the mines at North 
Sydney has the large-st coal shaft in the world. Because 
of these enormous deposits of bituminous coal, and the 
presence near by of dolomite, or limestone, steel industries 

39 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


have been developed in the Sydney district. Ownership 
of most of the coal and steel properties has been merged in 
the British Empire Steel Corporation, one of the largest 
single industrial enterprises in all Canada. It is this cor¬ 
poration, you will remember, that owns the Wabana iron 
mines in Newfoundland. 

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and north of the isthmus 
connecting Nova Scotia with the mainland, is Prince 
Edward Island, the smallest, but proportionately the 
richest province in the Dominion of Canada. It is not 
quite twice the size of Rhode Island, and has less than one 
hundred thousand people, but every acre of its land is 
tillable and most of it is cultivated. The island is some¬ 
times called the “Garden of the Gulf.” 

Prince Edward Island is a favourite resort of Americans 
on vacation. It leaped into fame as the scene of the first 
successful experiments in raising foxes for their furs, and 
now has more than half of the fox farms in Canada. The 
business of selling fox skins and breeding stock is worth 
nearly two million dollars a year to the Prince Edward 
Islanders. The greatest profits are from the sales of fine 
breeding animals. 

Most of the west shore of the Bay of Fundy and many 
of its northern reaches are in the third and westernmost 
of the three Maritime Provinces. This is the province of 
New Brunswick. It is Maine’s next-door neighbour, and 
almost as large, but it has less than half as many people. 
The wealth of New Brunswick, like that of Maine, comes 
chiefly from the farms, the fisheries, and the great forests 
that are fast being converted into lumber and paper. 
Its game and fresh-water fishing attract a great many 
sportsmen from both the United States and Canada. 

40 


THE MARITIME PROVINCES 


St. John, the chief city of New Brunswick at the mouth 
of the St. John River, used to be a centre of anti-American 
sentiment in Canada. This was because the city was 
founded by the Tories, who left the United States after we 
won our independence. St. John to-day is a busy com¬ 
mercial centre competing with Halifax for first place as 
Canada’s all-year Atlantic port. It is the eastern terminal 
of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, whose transatlantic 
liners use the port during the winter. It enjoys the ad¬ 
vantage over Halifax of being some two hundred miles 
nearer Montreal, but, like Halifax, suffers on account of 
the long railway haul and high freight rates to central 
Canada. As a matter of fact, New England, and not 
Canada, is the natural market for the Maritime Provinces, 
and every few years the proposal that this part of Canada 
form a separate Dominion comes up for discussion. Such 
talk is not taken seriously by the well informed, but it 
provides a good safety valve for local irritation. 


4i 


CHAPTER VII 


IN FRENCH CANADA 

C OME with me for a ride about Quebec, the oldest 
city in Canada, the ancient capital of France 
in America, and a stronghold of the Catholic 
Church. We go from the water-front through 
the Lower Town, up the heights, and out to where the 
modern city eats into the countryside. The Lower Town 
is largely French. The main part of the Upper Town 
used to be enclosed by walls and stone gates, parts of which 
are still standing. The dull gray buildings are of stone, 
with only shelf-like sidewalks between them and the street. 
Most of the streets are narrow. The heights are ascended 
by stairs, by a winding street, and in one place by an eleva¬ 
tor. The old French caleche, a two-wheeled vehicle be¬ 
tween a jinrikisha and a dog-cart, has been largely dis¬ 
placed by motor-cars, which can climb the steep grades in 
a jiffy. Even the ancient buildings are giving way to 
modern necessities, and every year some are torn down. 

As a city, Quebec is unique on this continent. It fairly 
drips with “atmosphere/' and is concentrated romance 
and history. You know the story, of course, of how 
Champlain founded it in 1608, on a narrow shelf of land 
under the rocky bluff that rises nearly three hundred and 
fifty feet above the St. Lawrence. Here brave French 
noblemen and priests started what they hoped would be 
a new empire for France. Between explorations, fights 
4 2 


IN FRENCH CANADA 


with the Indians, and frequent British attacks, they lived 
an exciting life. Finally, General Wolfe in 1759 succeeded 
in capturing for the British this Gibraltar of the New 
World. Landing his men by night, at dawn he was in 
position on the Plains of Abraham behind the fort. In the 
fight that followed Wolfe was killed, Montcalm, the 
French commander, was mortally wounded, and the city 
passed into the hands of the English. If General Mont¬ 
gomery and Benedict Arnold had succeeded in their at¬ 
tack on Quebec on New Year's Eve, sixteen years later, 
the history of all Canada would have been different, and 
the United States flag might be flying over the city to-day. 

The British built in the rock on top of the bluff a great 
fort and citadel covering about forty acres. It still bris¬ 
tles with cannon, but most of them are harmless compared 
with modern big guns. The works serve chiefly as a show 
place for visitors, and a summer residence for dukes and 
lords sent out to be governors-general of Canada. The 
fortification is like a mediaeval castle, with subterranean 
chambers and passages, and cannon balls heaped around 
the battlements. Below the old gun embrasures is a 
broad terrace, a quarter of a mile long. This furnishes the 
people of Quebec a beautiful promenade that overlooks 
the harbour and commands a fine view of Levis and the 
numerous villages on the other shore. 

The Parliament building stands a little beyond the 
entrance to the citadel. As we go on the architecture 
reflects the transition from French to British domination. 
The houses begin to move back from the sidewalk, and to 
take on front porches. I saw workmen putting in double 
windows, in preparation for winter, and noticed that the 
sides of many of the brick houses are clapboarded to keep 
43 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


the frost out of the mortar. Still farther out apartments 
appear, while a little beyond are all the marks of a subur¬ 
ban real estate boom. Most of the “for sale” signs are 
in both French and English. 

Now come with me and look at another Quebec, of 
which you probably have never heard. The city is built, 
as you know, where the St. Charles River flows into the 
St. Lawrence. The valley of the St. Charles has become 
a great hive of industry, and contains the homes of 
thousands of French workers. Looking down upon it from 
the ancient Martello Tower on the heights of the Upper 
Town, we see a wilderness of factory walls, church spires, 
and the roofs of homes. Beyond them great fields slope 
upward, finally losing themselves in the wooded foothills 
of the Laurentian Mountains. Cotton goods, boots and 
shoes, tobacco, and clothing are manufactured here. It 
was from this valley that workers for the textile and shoe 
industries of New England were recruited by thousands. 
A few miles upstream is the village of Indian Lorette, 
where descendants of a Huron tribe, Christianized by the 
French centuries ago, make leather moccasins for lumber¬ 
jacks and slippers for American souvenir buyers. A big 
fur company also has a fox farm near Indian Lorette. 

Quebec was once the chief port of Canada, but when the 
river was dredged up to Montreal it fell far behind. All 
but the largest transatlantic liners can now sail for 
Europe from Montreal, though they make Quebec a port 
of call. Quebec is five hundred miles nearer Liverpool 
than is New York, and passengers using this route have 
two days less in the open sea. The navigation season is 
about eight months. The port has rail connections with 
all Canada and the United States. Above the city is the 
44 


IN FRENCH CANADA 


world's longest cantilever bridge, on which trains cross the 
river. After two failures the great central span, six hundred 
and forty feet long, was raised from floating barges and 
put into place one hundred and fifty feet above the water. 

In the English atmosphere of the Maritime Provinces 
I felt quite at home, but here I seem to be in a foreign land, 
and time has been pushed back a century or so. We think 
of Canada as British, and assume that English is the na¬ 
tional language. But in Quebec, its largest province, 
containing about one fifth of the total area, nearly nine 
tenths of the people are French and speak the French 
language. They number almost one fourth of the popula¬ 
tion of the Dominion. 

Quebec is larger than Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and 
California combined; it is nearly as big as all our states east 
of the Mississippi River put together. Covering an area 
of seven hundred thousand square miles, it reaches from 
the northern borders of New York and New England to the 
ArcticOcean; from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Labrador 
westward to Hudson Bay and the Ottawa River. Most 
Americans see that part of Quebec along the St. Lawrence 
between the capital and Montreal, but only one fourteenth 
of the total area of the province lies south of the river. 
The St. Lawrence is more than nineteen hundred miles 
long, and Quebec extends along its north bank for almost 
the entire distance. 

Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1535 
and claimed possession of the new land in the name of 
“Christ and France.” Later, French soldiers and priests 
pushed their way up the river, explored the Great Lakes, 
and went down the Mississippi. It was French fur 
traders, fishermen, and farmers who opened up and 
45 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


populated eastern Canada. With no immigration from 
France since British rule began, the population of the prov¬ 
ince of Quebec has had a natural increase from about 
sixty thousand to more than two millions. The average 
family numbers from six to eight persons, while families 
of twelve and fourteen children are common. Quebec 
maintains the highest birth rate of any province in Canada. 
It has also the highest death rate, but there is a large 
net gain every year. 

Quebec is one of the chief reservoirs of Canada's nat¬ 
ural wealth. It leads all other provinces in its produc¬ 
tion of pulpwood, and contributes more than one half the 
Dominion's output of pulp and paper. It is second only 
to British Columbia and Ontario in lumber production, 
while its northern reaches contain the last storehouse of 
natural furs left on our continent. 

Canada is one of the world’s great sources of water¬ 
power. Nearly half of that already developed is in the 
province of Quebec, and her falling waters are now yield¬ 
ing more than a million horse-power. Tens of thousands 
of additional units are being put to work every year, while 
some five million horse-power are in reserve. It would 
take eight million tons of coal a year to supply as much 
power as Quebec now gets from water. 

At Three Rivers, about halfway between Montreal and 
Quebec, the St. Maurice River empties into the St. 
Lawrence. Twenty miles upstream are the Shawinigan 
Falls, the chief source of power of the Shawinigan Com¬ 
pany, which, with its subsidiaries, is now producing in this 
district more than five hundred thousand horse-power. 
This is nearly half the total power development in the 
province. Around the power plant there have grown up 





The ancient citadel on the heights of Quebec is now dwarfed by a giant 
castle-like hotel that helps make the American Gibraltar a tourist resort. 
Its windows command a magnificent view of the St. Lawrence. 






The St. Louis gate commemorates the days when Quebec was a walled 
city and always well garrisoned with troops. Just beyond is the building 
of the provincial parliament, where most of the speeches are in French. 











IN FRENCH CANADA 


electro-chemical industries that support a town of twelve 
thousand people, while at Three Rivers more paper is made 
than anywhere else in the world. Shawinigan power 
runs the lighting plants and factories of Montreal and 
Quebec, and also serves most of the towns south of the St. 
Lawrence. The current is carried over the river in a thick 
cable, nearly a mile long, suspended on high towers. 

In the Thetford district of southern Quebec, power 
from Shawinigan operates the machinery of the asbestos 
mines. Fifty years ago, when these deposits were dis¬ 
covered, there was almost no market for asbestos at ten 
dollars a ton. Nowadays, with its use in theatre cur¬ 
tains, automobile brake linings, and coatings for furnaces 
and steam pipes, the best grades bring two thousand 
dollars a ton, and two hundred thousand tons are produced 
in a year. Quebec now furnishes eighty-eight per cent, 
of the world’s annual supply of this mineral. 

The Quebec government controls all power sites, and 
leases them to private interests for ninety-nine year terms. 
The province has spent large sums in conserving its water¬ 
power resources. At the headquarters of the St. Maurice 
River, it built the Gouin reservoir, which floods an area of 
more than three hundred square miles, and stores more 
water than the great Aswan Dam on the Nile. 

Quebec is the third province in value of agricultural 
production. What I have seen of its farms convinces me 
that the French Canadian on the land is a conspicuous 
success. For a half day I rode along the south shore of 
the St. Lawrence River through a country like one great 
farm. Nearly every foot of it is occupied by French 
farmers. Most of the time we were on high ground, over¬ 
looking the river, which, where we first saw it, was forty 
47 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


miles wide. It grew constantly narrower, until, where we 
crossed it on a ferry to Quebec, its width was less than a 
mile. All the way we had splendid views of the Lauren- 
tian Mountains, looming up on the north shore of the 
river. Geologists say the Laurentians are the oldest rock 
formation on our continent. They are not high, the peaks 
averaging about sixteen hundred feet elevation, but they 
are one of the great fish and game preserves of the world 
and are sprinkled with hunting and fishing clubs. 

In accordance with French law the Quebec farms have 
been divided and sub-divided among so many succeeding 
generations that the land is cut into narrow ribbons. 
Contrary to the custom in France, however, every field 
is fenced in with rails. I am sure that the fences I saw, 
if joined together, would easily reach from Quebec to 
Washington and back. They did not zig-zag across the 
fields like ours, thereby wasting both rails and land, but 
extended in a straight line, up hill and down, sometimes 
for as much as a mile or more. 

The standard French farm along the St. Lawrence used 
to be “three acres wide and thirty acres long,” with a wood 
lot at the farther end, and the house in the middle. As 
the river was the chief highway of the country, it was 
essential that every farmer have water frontage. With 
each division one or more new houses would be built, and 
always in the middle of the strip. The result is that every 
farmer has a near neighbour on each side of him, and the 
farmhouses form an almost continuous settlement along 
the highway, much like the homes on a suburban street. 
Each wood lot usually includes several hundred maple 
trees, and the annual production of maple sugar and 
syrup in Quebec is worth several hundred thousand dol- 
48 


IN FRENCH CANADA 

lars. The maple leaf is the national emblem of Can¬ 
ada. 

The houses are large and well built. They have nar¬ 
row porches, high above the ground, reached by steps 
from below. This construction enables the occupants to 
gain access to their living rooms in winter without so much 
snow shovelling as would otherwise be necessary. For 
the same reason, most of the barns are entered by in¬ 
clines leading up to the second floor and some are con¬ 
nected with the houses by bridges. The older houses are 
of stone, coated with whitewashed cement. With their 
dormer windows and big, square chimneys they look com¬ 
fortable. 

I saw the signs of thrift everywhere. Firewood was 
piled up for the winter, and in many cases a few cords of 
pulpwood besides, sometimes in such a manner as to form 
fences for the vegetable gardens. This winter the pulp- 
wood in these fences will be sold. The chief crops raised 
are hay, oats, beans, and peas. The latter, in the form of 
soup, is served almost daily in the Quebec farmer’s home. 

In the villages all the signs are in French, and in one 
where I stopped for a time, I had difficulty in making my¬ 
self understood. The British Canadian resents the fact 
that the French do not try to learn English. On the other 
hand the French rather resent the English neglect of 
French, which they consider the proper language of the 
country. Proceedings in the provincial parliament are in 
both tongues. French business men and the professional 
and office-holding classes can speak English, but the mass 
of the people know but the one language and are not en¬ 
couraged to learn any other. 

When the British conceded to Quebec the right to retain 
49 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


the French language, the French law, and the Catholic 
Church, they made it possible for the French to remain 
almost a separate people. The French Canadians ask 
only that they be permitted to control their own affairs in 
their own way, and to preserve their institutions of family, 
church, and school. They cultivate the land and per¬ 
form most of the labour; they own all the small shops, 
while most of the big business is in the hands of British 
Canadians. Any slight, real or fancied, to the French 
language or institutions, is quickly resented. The other 
day a French society and the Mayor of Quebec made a 
formal protest to a hotel manager because he displayed a 
sign printed only in English. American moving picture 
distributors must supply their films with titles in French. 
Menu cards, traffic directions, and, in fact, almost all 
notices of a public character, are always given in both 
languages. Only two of the five daily newspapers are 
printed in English; the others are French. 

Quebec is now capitalizing her assets in the way of 
scenery and historic association, and is calculating how 
much money a motor tourist from the States is worth 
each day of his visit. The city of Quebec hopes to be¬ 
come the St. Moritz of America and the centre for winter 
sports. The Canadian Pacific Railroad has here the first 
of its chain of hotels that extends across Canada. It is 
built in the design of a French castle, and is so big that it 
dwarfs the Citadel. The hotel provides every facility for 
winter sports, including skating and curling rinks, tobog¬ 
gan slides, and ski jumps. It has expert ski jumpers from 
Norway to initiate visitors into this sport, and dog teams 
from Alaska to pull them on sleds. Quebec has snow on 
the ground throughout the winter season, and the ther- 
50 



In the old Lower Town are all sorts of narrow streets that may end in 
the rock cliff, a flight of stairs, or an elevator. Many of them are paved 
with planks. 















Miles of rail fences divide the French farms into ribbon-like strips of 
land that extend from the St. Lawrence far back to the wooded hills. 
This is the result of repeated partition of the original holdings. 













IN FRENCH CANADA 


mometer sometimes drops to twenty-five degrees below 
zero, but the people say the air is so dry that they do not 
feel this severe cold. Which reminds me of Kipling’s 
verse: 


There was a small boy of Quebec 
Who was buried in snow to his neck. 
When they asked: “Are you friz?” 

He replied: “Yes I is- 

But we don’t call this cold in Quebec.” 


5 


CHAPTER VIII 


STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE AND ITS MIRACULOUS CURES 

I HAVE just returned from a visit to the Shrine of 
the Good Sainte Anne, where three hundred thou¬ 
sand pilgrims worshipped this year. I have looked 
upon the holy relics and the crutches left behind by 
the cured and my knees are sore from climbing up the 
sacred stairway. 

The Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupre, some twenty miles 
down the river from Quebec, is the most famous place of 
the kind on our continent. Quebec is the capital of French 
Catholicism, and Beaupre is its Mount Vernon, where 
good Catholics pay homage to the grandmother of their 
church. The other day a family of five arrived at Ste. 
Anne; they came from Mexico and had walked, they said, 
all the way. Last summer two priests came here on foot 
from Boston, and I talked this morning with a man who 
organizes weekly pilgrimages from New England. Thou¬ 
sands come from the United States and Canada, Alaska 
and Newfoundland. I saw to-day a couple just arrived in 
a Pennsylvania motor truck. 

On Ste. Anne’s day, July 26th, the number of pilgrims 
is often twenty thousand and more. Special electric 
trains and motor busses carry the worshippers from Que¬ 
bec to Ste. Anne. For the accommodation of overnight 
visitors, the one street of the village is lined with little 
hotels and lodging houses that remind me of our summer 
52 


STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE 


resorts. For a week before Ste. Anne’s day, every house 
is packed, and sometimes the church is filled with pilgrims 
sitting up all night. Frequently parties of several hundred 
persons leave Quebec on foot at midnight, and walk to 
Ste. Anne, where they attend mass before eating break¬ 
fast. 

The story of Ste. Anne de Beaupre goes back nearly 
two thousand years. The saint was the mother of the 
Virgin Mary, and therefore the grandmother of Christ. 
We are told that her body was brought from Bethlehem to 
Jerusalem, and then to Apt, in France, which thereupon 
became a great shrine. In a time of persecution her 
bones disappeared, but they were later recovered in a 
miraculous manner. According to tradition they were 
revealed to Charlemagne by a youth born deaf, dumb, and 
blind. He indicated by signs an altar beneath which a 
secret crypt was found. In the crypt a lamp was burning 
and behind it was a wooden chest containing the remains 
of the saint. The young man straightway was able to 
see, hear, and speak, and the re-discovered shrine became 
a great source of healing. This was exactly seven hundred 
years before Columbus discovered America. 

The first church of Ste. Anne was erected at Beaupre 
in 1658. Tradition says it was built by sailors threatened 
with shipwreck, who promised Ste. Anne a new church at 
whatever spot she would bring them safely to land. Soon 
after the shrine was established bishops and priests re¬ 
ported wonderful cures, and since then, as the fame of 
the miracles spread, the shrine has become a great place 
of worship. Churches, chapels, and monasteries have been 
built and rebuilt, and countless gifts have been showered 
upon them. The first relic of Ste. Anne brought here was 
53 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


a fragment of one of her finger bones. In 1892, Pope 
Leo XIII gave the “Great Relic,” consisting of a piece 
of bone from the saint’s wrist. This is now the chief 
object of veneration by pilgrims. 

On March 29, 1922, the shrine suffered a loss by fire. 
The great church, or basilica, was completely destroyed, 
but the sacred relics and most of the other articles of value 
were saved. The gilded wooden statue of Ste. Anne, 
high up on the roof over the door, was only slightly 
scorched by the blaze. It now stands in the gardens 
awaiting the completion of the new church. The new 
building has been planned on such a large scale that five 
years have been allowed for its construction. Meanwhile, 
the pilgrims worship in a temporary wooden structure. 

The numerous buildings that now form part of the 
shrine of Ste. Anne are on both sides of the village street, 
which is also the chief highway along the north bank of the 
St. Lawrence. On one side the fenced fields of the narrow 
French farms slope down to the river. On the other, hills 
rise up so steeply that they seem almost cliffs. The 
church and the monastery and the school of the Re- 
demptorist Fathers, the order now in charge of the shrine, 
are on the river side. Across the roadway are the Me¬ 
morial Chapel, the stations marking “The Way of the 
Cross,” the sacred stairway, and, farther up the hillside, 
the convent of the Franciscan Sisters. 

One of the Redemptorists, the Director of Pilgrimages, 
told me much that was interesting about Ste. Anne and 
her shrine. He gave me also a copy of the Order’s advice 
on “how to make a good pilgrimage.” This booklet urges 
the pilgrim to hear Holy Mass as soon as possible. It 
says that “the greatest number of miraculous cures or 
54 



In the province of Quebec nine tenths of the people are French- 
speaking Catholics. Every village supports a large church, every house 
contains a picture of the Virgin Mary, and every road has its wayside 
shrine. 












In the heart of the business and financial districts of Montreal is the 
Place d’Armes, once the site of a stockade and the scene of Indian fights. 
There stands the church of Notre Dame, one of the largest in all America. 


























STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE 

favours are obtained at the Shrine after a fervent Com¬ 
munion.^ 

‘'After Holy Communion,” the Order’s advices con¬ 
tinue, “the act most agreeable to Sainte Anne and the one 
most calculated to gain her favours, is the veneration of 
her relic.” 

.The act of veneration is performed by pilgrims kneel¬ 
ing before the shrine containing the piece of Ste. Anne’s 
wrist bone. It is then that most of the cures are pro¬ 
claimed. The people kneel in prayer as close to the shrine 
as the number of worshippers will permit. Those who ex¬ 
perience a cure spring up in great joy and cast at the feet 
of the saint’s statue their crutches or other evidence of 
their former affliction. In the church I saw perhaps fifty 
crutches, canes, and sticks left there this summer by grate¬ 
ful pilgrims. At the back of the church I saw cases filled 
with spectacles, leg braces, and body harnesses, and even a 
couple of wheel chairs, all abandoned by pilgrims. One 
rack was filled with tobacco pipes, evidence of promises to 
give up smoking in return for the saint’s favours. 

The miraculous statue of Ste. Anne, before which the 
pilgrims kneel, represents the saint holding in her arms 
the infant Christ. On her head is a diadem of gold and 
precious stones, the gifts of the devout. Below the statue 
is a slot marked “petitions.” Pilgrims having special 
favours to ask of Ste. Anne write them on slips of paper and 
drop them into the box. After three or four months, they 
are taken out and burned. On the day of my visit the 
holy relic was not in its usual place in the church, but in the 
chapel of the monastery, a fireproof building, where it had 
been moved for safekeeping. It was there that I gazed 
upon the bit of bone. The relic is encased in a box of 
55 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


solid gold and is encircled by a broad gold band, about 
the size of a napkin ring, set with twenty-eight diamonds. 
The box is studded with gems and inlaid with richly 
coloured enamels. All the precious stones came from 
jewellery given by pilgrims. 

I visited also the “Grotto of the Passion.” This con¬ 
tains three groups of figures, representing events in the 
life of Christ. In front of the central group is a large, 
shallow pan, partly filled with water and dotted with the 
stumps of candles lighted and set there by pilgrims to 
burn until extinguished by the water. The Grotto is in 
the lower part of a wooden structure that looks like a 
church, built on the side of the hill. Above is the “Scala 
Sancta,” or sacred stairway. Large signs warn visitors 
that these stairs, which represent those in Pilate’s house, 
are to be ascended only on the knees. There are twenty- 
eight steps, and those who go up are supposed to pause 
on each one and repeat a prayer. As I reverently mounted 
the steps, one by one, I was reminded of the Scala Sancta 
in Rome, which I climbed in the same way some years 
ago. It is a flight of twenty-eight marble steps from the 
palace of Pilate at Jerusalem, up which our Saviour is said 
to have climbed. It was brought to Rome toward the 
end of the period of the crusades, and may be ascended 
only on the knees. 

The stairway at Beaupre is often the scene of miracu¬ 
lous cures, but none occurred while I was there. At the 
top the pilgrims kneel again and make their devotions, 
ending with the words, “Good Sainte Anne, pray for us.” 

Near the church are stores that sell souvenirs, bead 
crosses, and the like, the proceeds from which go toward the 
upkeep of the shrine. At certain hours each day articles 
56 


STE. ANNE DE BEAUPR.fi 

thus purchased, or those the pilgrims have brought from 
home, are blessed by the priests in attendance. Another 
source of revenue is the sale of the shrine magazine, which 
has a circulation of about eighty thousand. Subscribers 
whether “living or dead, share in one daily mass” said 
at the shrine. Pilgrims are also invited to join the Associa¬ 
tion of the Perpetual Mass, whose members, for the sum 
of fifty cents a year, may share in a mass “said every day 
for all time.” 

The Director of Pilgrimages told me that the past 
summer had been the best season in the history of the 
shrine. The pilgrims this year numbered more than 
three hundred thousand, their contributions were gener¬ 
ous, and the number of cures, or “favours,” large. About 
one third of these, said the Director, prove to be per¬ 
manent. The Fathers take the name and address of each 
pilgrim who claims to have experienced a miraculous cure, 
and inquiries are made later to find out if relief has been 
lasting. The shrine has quantities of letters and photo¬ 
graphs as evidences of health and strength being restored 
here, and I have from eye-witnesses first-hand accounts 
of the joyous transports of the lame, the halt, and the blind 
when their ailments vanish, apparently, in the twinkling 
of an eye. 

I have referred to Quebec as the American capital 
of French Catholicism. It is not only a city of many 
churches, but is also headquarters for numerous Catholic 
orders, some of which established themselves here after 
being driven from France. The value of their property 
holdings now amounts to a large sum, and one of the new 
real-estate sub-divisions is being developed by a clerical 
order. Many of the fine old mansion homes, with park- 
57 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


like grounds, once owned by British Canadians, are now 
in the hands of religious organizations. The Ursuline 
nuns used to own the Plains of Abraham, and were about 
to sell the tract for building lots when public sentiment 
compelled the government to purchase it and convert it 
into a park. A statue of General Wolfe marks the spot 
where he died on the battlefield. It is the third one 
erected there, the first two having been ruined by souvenir 
fiends. 

The homes of the Catholic orders in Quebec supply 
priests for the new parishes constantly being formed in 
Canada. They also send their missionaries to all parts 
of the world, and from one of the nunneries volunteers 
go to the leper colonies in Madagascar. Other orders 
maintain hospitals, orphanages, and institutions identi¬ 
fied with the city’s historic past. Before an altar in one 
of the churches two nuns, dressed in bridal white, are al¬ 
ways praying, night and day, each couple being relieved 
every half hour. In another a lamp burning before a 
statue of the Virgin has not been extinguished since it was 
first lighted, fifteen years before George Washington was 
born. Some of the churches contain art treasures of great 
value, besides articles rich in their historical associations. 

Driving in the outskirts of Quebec I met a party of 
Franciscan monks returning from their afternoon walk. 
They were bespectacled, studious-looking young men, clad 
in robes of a gingerbread brown, fastened with white 
girdles, and wearing sandals on their bare feet. All were 
tonsured, but I noticed that their shaved crowns were in 
many instances in need of a fresh cutting. These men al¬ 
ternate studies with manual labour in the fields. In front 
of the church of this order is a great wooden cross bearing 
58 


STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE 


the figure of Christ. Before it is a stone where the devout 
kneel and embrace His wounded feet. Near by is also a 
statue of St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuit Order, stand¬ 
ing with one foot on the neck of a man who represents the 
heretics. 

There are in Quebec a few thousand Irish Catholics, 
descendants of people who came here to escape the famine 
in Ireland. They have built a church of their own. An¬ 
other church, shown to visitors as a curiosity, is that of the 
French Protestants, who, according to the latest figures, 
number exactly one hundred and thirty-five. 

Though a city of well over one hundred thousand peo¬ 
ple, Quebec has an enviable record for peace and order 
and for comparatively few crimes. The credit for this is 
generally given to the influence of the Church, which is 
also responsible, so I am told, for the success of the French 
Canadian in “minding his own business.” The loyalty 
of the people to their faith is evidenced by the fact that 
even the smallest village has a big church. Outside the 
cities the priest, or cure, is in fact the shepherd of his 
flock, and their consultant on all sorts of matters. I am 
told, however, that the clergy do not exercise the same 
control over political and worldly affairs as was formerly 
the case, and not nearly so much as is generally supposed. 
It is still true, however, that the Catholic religion is second 
only to the French language in keeping the French Cana¬ 
dians almost a separate people. 


59 


CHAPTER IX 


MONTREAL 

F OLLOWING the course of the French explorers, 
I have come up the St. Lawrence to the head of 
navigation, and am now in Montreal, the largest 
city of Canada and the second port of North 
America. It is an outlet for much of the grain of both the 
United States and Canada, and it handles one third of all 
the foreign trade of the Dominion. Montreal is the 
financial centre of the country and the headquarters for 
many of its largest business enterprises. In a commercial 
sense, it is indeed the New York of Canada, although to¬ 
tally unlike our metropolis. 

In order to account for the importance of Montreal, it is 
necessary only to glance at the map. Look first at the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and the broad mouth of the river! 
See how they form a great funnel inviting the world to 
pour in its people and goods. Follow the St. Lawrence 
down to Quebec and on by Montreal to the Great Lakes, 
which extend westward to the very heart of the continent. 
There is no such waterway on the face of the globe and 
none that carries such a vast commerce into the midst of a 
great industrial empire. 

Montreal is the greatest inland port in the world. It 
ships more grain than any other city. It is only four 
hundred and twenty miles north of New York, yet it is 
three hundred miles nearer Liverpool. One third of the 
60 


MONTREAL 


distance to that British port lies between here and the 
Straits of Belle Isle, where the Canadian liners first meet 
the waves of the open sea. The city is the terminus ot 
the canal from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence and 
of Canada’s three transcontinental railways. Vessels 
from all over the world come here to get cargoes assembled 
from one of the most productive regions on the globe. Al¬ 
though frozen in for five months every winter, Montreal 
annually handles nearly four million tons of shipping, 
most of which is under the British flag. It has a foreign 
trade of more than five hundred million dollars. The an¬ 
nual grain movement sometimes exceeds one hundred 
and sixty bushels for each of the city’s population of al¬ 
most a million. 

In the modern sense, the port is not yet one hundred 
years old, though Cartier was here nearly four centuries 
ago, and Champlain came only seventy years later. Both 
were prevented from going farther upstream by the La- 
chine Rapids, just above the present city. Cartier was 
seeking the northwest passage to the East Indies, and he 
gave the rapids the name La Chine because he thought 
that beyond them lay China. 

At the foot of the rapids the Frenchmen found an island, 
thirty miles long and from seven to ten miles wide, 
separated from the mainland by the two mouths of the 
Ottawa River. It was then occupied by a fortified Indian 
settlement. The presence of the Indians seemed to make 
the island an appropriate site on which to lay the founda¬ 
tions of the new Catholic “ Kingdom of God,” and the great 
hill in the background, seven hundred and forty feet high, 
suggested the name, Mont Real, or Mount Royal. 

Although the Indians seemed to prefer fighting the 
61 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


newcomers to gaining salvation, the religious motive was 
long kept alive, and it was not until early in the last 
century that the city began to assume great commercial 
importance. During the first days of our Revolution, 
General Montgomery occupied Montreal for a time, and 
Benjamin Franklin begged its citizens to join our rebellion. 
It had then about four thousand inhabitants. Even as 
late as 1830 Montreal was a walled town, with only a 
beach in the way of shipping accommodations. The 
other day it was described by an expert from New York 
as the most efficiently organized port in the world. 

I have gone down to the harbour and been lifted up to 
the tops of grain elevators half as high as the Washing¬ 
ton Monument. I have also been a guest of the Harbour 
Commission in a tour of the water-front. The Commission 
is an all-powerful body in the development and control of 
the port. Its members, who are appointed by the Domin¬ 
ion government, have spent nearly forty million dollars 
in improvements. This sum amounts to almost five 
dollars a head for everyone in Canada, but the port has 
always earned the interest on its bonds, and has never 
been a burden to the taxpayers. 

An American, Peter Fleming, who built the locks on 
the Erie Canal, drew the first plans for the harbour de¬ 
velopment of Montreal. That was about a century ago. 
Now the city has its own expert port engineers, and last 
summer one of the firms here built in ninety days a 
grain elevator addition with a capacity of twelve hun¬ 
dred and fifty thousand bushels. A giant new elevator, 
larger than any in existence, is now being erected. It 
will have a total capacity of fourteen million bushels of 
grain. 


62 



Montreal’s future, like her present greatness, lies along her water 
front. Here the giant elevators load the grain crop of half a continent 
into vessels that sail the seven seas. 





On a clear day one may stand on Mt. Royal, overlooking Montreal and 
the St. Lawrence, and see in the distance the Green Mountains of Vermont 
and the Adirondacks of New York. 






















MONTREAL 


The port handles at times as much as twenty-three 
hundred thousand bushels of wheat in a day. It is not 
uncommon for a lake vessel to arrive early in the morning, 
discharge its cargo, and start back to the head of the lakes 
before noon. Rivers of wheat are sucked out of the barges, 
steamers, and freight cars, and flow at high speed into the 
storage bins. There are sixty miles of water-front rail¬ 
ways, most of which have been electrified. Every opera¬ 
tion possible is performed by machinery, and there are 
never more than a few workmen anywhere in sight. Yet 
the grain business is a source of great revenue to the city, 
and furnishes a living to thousands of people. One of the 
industries it has built up is that of making grain sacks, of 
which one firm here turns out two and one half millions a 
year. 

But let me tell you something of the city itself—or, bet¬ 
ter still, suppose we go up to the top of Mount Royal and 
look down upon it as it lies under our eyes. We shall 
start from my hotel, a new eight-million-dollar structure 
erected chiefly to accommodate American visitors, and 
take a coach. As a concession to hack drivers, taxis are 
not allowed on top of Mount Royal. 

Our way lies through the grounds of McGill University, 
and past one of the reservoirs built in the hillside to sup¬ 
ply the city with water pumped from the river. McGill 
is the principal Protestant educational institution in the 
province of Quebec. Here Stephen Leacock teaches 
political economy when he is not lecturing or writing his 
popular humorous essays. Besides colleges of art, law, 
medicine, and applied science, McGill has a school of 
practical agriculture, It also teaches young women how 
to cook. It has branches at Victoria and Vancouver in 
6 3 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


British Columbia. The medical school is rated especially 
high, and many of its graduates are practicing physicians 
in the United States. 

Now we are on the winding drive leading to the top of 
the hill. Steep flights of wooden stairs furnish a shorter 
way up for those equal to a stiff climb, and we pass several 
parties of horseback riders. All this area is a public park, 
and a favourite spot with the people of the city. See those 
three women dressed in smart sport suits, carrying slender 
walking sticks. They seem very English. Over there 
are two girls, in knickers and blouses, gaily conversing with 
their young men. They have dark eyes and dark hair, 
with a brunette glow on their cheeks that marks them as 
French. 

Step to the railing on the edge of the summit. If the 
day were clear we could see the Adirondacks and the Green 
Mountains of Vermont. Like a broad ribbon of silver the 
St. Lawrence flows at our feet. That island over there is 
called St. Helene, bought by Champlain as a present for 
his wife. Since he paid for it out of her dowry, he could 
hardly do less than give it her name. 

That narrow thread to the right, parallel with the river, 
is the Lachine Canal, in which a steamer is beginning its 
climb to the level of Lake St. Louis. The canal has a 
depth of fourteen feet, and accommodates ships up to 
twenty-five hundred tons. The shores of the lake, which 
is really only a widening out of the river, furnish pleasant 
sites for summer bungalows and cool drives on hot nights. 
Nearer the city the canal banks are lined with warehouses 
and factories. Montreal’s manufactures amount to more 
than five hundred million dollars a year. 

There below us is Victoria Jubilee Bridge, one and 

64 


MONTREAL 


three quarters miles long. Over it trains and motors from 
the United States come into the city. Another railroad 
penetrates the heart of Montreal by a tunnel under 
Mount Royal that has twin tubes more than three miles 
in length. The Canadian Pacific Railroad has bridged 
the St. Lawrence at Lachine. 

Most of Montreal lies between Mount Royal and the 
river, but the wings of the city reach around on each side of 
the hill. The French live in the eastern section. The 
western suburbs contain the homes of well-to-do English 
Canadians. One of them, Westmount, is actually sur¬ 
rounded by the city, yet it insists on remaining a separate 
municipality. 

Mark Twain said that he would not dare throw a stone 
in Montreal for fear of smashing a church window. If he 
could view the city to-day he would be even more timid. 
Almost every building that rises above the skyline is a 
church, and the largest structures are generally Catholic 
schools, colleges, hospitals, or orphanages. 

In the heart of Montreal’s Wall Street is the huge Church 
of Notre Dame. It seats twelve thousand people, and in 
its tower is the largest bell in America, weighing about 
twenty-nine thousand pounds. That dome farther over 
marks the location of the Cathedral of St. James. It is a 
replica, on a reduced scale, of St. Peter’s at Rome. It 
seats several thousand worshippers; nevertheless, when I 
went there last Sunday morning hundreds were standing, 
and within fifteen minutes after one service was concluded 
it was again filled to capacity for the next. 

Downtown Montreal is built largely of limestone. It 
has a massive look, but skyscrapers are barred by a city 
ordinance. Erection of modern steel and concrete office 
65 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


buildings is now under way, and they stand out conspic¬ 
uously against the background of more old-fashioned 
structures. Big as it is and important commercially, Mon¬ 
treal seems a city without any Main Street. St. Catherine 
Street has the largest retail stores and the “bright lights” 
of theatres and cafes, but I have seen more impressive 
thoroughfares in much smaller places at home. This is 
essentially a French city, though less so than Quebec. 
The French do not naturally incline toward “big business.” 
They seem content with small shops, which since the days 
of their grandfathers have grown in numbers rather than in 
size. They are by nature conservative, and though they 
make shrewd business managers, they care little for in¬ 
novations in either public or private affairs. 

I have visited the biggest market, the Bonsecours. It 
is quite as French as those I have seen in southern France. 
This market takes up a wide street running from the heart 
of Montreal down to the wharves. The street is the over¬ 
flow of the market proper, which fills a church-like build¬ 
ing covering an acre of ground. When I arrived the open 
space was crowded with French farmers, who in the early 
morning had driven their cars and light motor trucks 
loaded down with fruits and vegetables into the city. 
Fully half of the wagons were in charge of women, who 
looked much like those in the Halles Central in Paris. 
As I pressed my way through the throng many of them 
called out to me in French and some thrust their wares 
into my face and urged me to buy. 

The mayor of Montreal is always a French Canadian, 
and he is usually reelected for several terms. I talked 
with His Honour and found him a most pleasant gentle¬ 
man. Discussing his city, he said: 

66 



In the French market one feels he is indeed in a foreign land, and 
among a people of alien tongue. When he buys, however, he discovers 
that the farmers understand perfectly when money does the talking. 










Kipling did not endear himself to Montreal when he called Canada 
“Our Lady of the Snows,” yet the people are really proud of their facil¬ 
ities for winter sports, which include a toboggan slide down Mt. Royal. 






MONTREAL 


“ Montreal is thriving as never before. Our population 
is rapidly increasing and we expect soon to have more 
than a million. We have taken in some of the suburbs, 
as your great cities have done, and our increasing oppor¬ 
tunities are constantly attracting new people. 

“ I believe we are one of the most cosmopolitan com¬ 
munities on the continent,” continued the Mayor. 
“About seventy per cent, of us are French, and a large part 
of the balance are English Canadians. We have also Amer¬ 
icans, Germans, Belgians, Italians, and Chinese, besides 
large numbers of Irish and Scotch, and some of the peoples 
of southeastern Europe. We are the Atlantic gate to 
Canada, so that a large portion of our immigrants pass 
through here on their way west. Many of them go no 
farther, as they find employment in our varied industries. 

“ It costs us more than twenty million dollars a year to 
run Montreal, but we feel that we can afford it. The 
value of our taxable buildings amounts to nearly seven 
hundred and fifty millions, and is increasing at the rate of 
fifteen millions a year. We have more than one million 
acres of public parks, or in excess of an acre for every man, 
woman, and child in the city/’ 

Montreal is one of the great sport centres of Canada. 
In the warm months, the people play golf, baseball, 
football, and lacrosse. The latter is a most exciting 
game, borrowed from the Indians, with more thrills and 
rough play than our college football. It is a cross between 
hockey and basketball. A light ball is tossed from player 
to player by means of a little net on the end of a long 
curved stick, the object of each side being to get the ball 
into the opponents' goal. In the game I saw, the players 
were often hit on the head and shoulders, and before the 
67 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


afternoon was over there had been a good deal of blood¬ 
shed from minor injuries. 1 was told, however, that this 
match was exceptionally rough. 

In the winter, hockey is the great game of Canada. 
Every large city has its hockey rink, and, where there are 
many Scotch, curling rinks as well. In curling, great 
round soapstones are slid across a designated space on 
the ice toward the opponents, who stand guard with 
brooms. By sweeping the ice in front of the approach¬ 
ing stone, they try to veer it out of the course intended by 
the player who started it toward their goal. 

As far as the masses of the people are concerned, ski¬ 
ing, snowshoeing, and coasting are the chief winter sports, 
and in them nearly everybody takes part. In Montreal, 
toboggan slides are built on the sides of Mount Royal, and 
its slopes are covered with young men and women on 
snowshoes and skis. 

Montreal used to build an ice palace every winter. 
Then the business men feared the city was acquiring an 
antarctic reputation that would discourage visitors. Con¬ 
sequently, organized exploitation of winter sports fell off 
for a time, but this fall a fund of thirty thousand dollars 
is being subscribed to finance them on a large scale. 


68 


CHAPTER X 


Canada’s big banks 

T HERE are more than eight thousand national 
banks in the United States, but Canada has only 
sixteen. While new ones are organized in our 
country every month, the number in Canada 
tends constantly to grow less, and to-day is not half what 
it was twenty years ago. The banking system of the 
Dominion is patterned somewhat after the Scotch, and 
was worked out largely by men of that shrewd, hard- 
headed race. The people think it suits their conditions 
better than any other. Certainly it is true that while 
Canada has had its ups and downs, the people have suf¬ 
fered far less than we from bank failures and panics. 

One might think that with all the banking business of 
Canada monopolized by only sixteen institutions, they 
might make fabulous profits. However, such is not the 
case. I have before me the current monthly statement 
which the government publishes regarding the condition 
and operation of each bank. This shows that all are mak¬ 
ing money, but their dividends range from six to sixteen 
per cent., and the Bank of Nova Scotia is the only one 
that paid the highest rate. Nine of the banks paid twelve 
per cent, on their capital stock last year, while the share¬ 
holders of five got less than ten per cent. 

In the United States a handful of business men can 
start a bank on a few thousand dollars. Here it is not 
69 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


so easy a matter. Canadian law requires a minimum 
capital of five hundred thousand dollars, half of which 
must be paid in, before a bank can be chartered, and there 
are other conditions to be met that make the establish¬ 
ment of a new bank a big undertaking. The smallest 
bank in Canada, at Weyburn, Saskatchewan, is the only 
one with a capital of less than one million dollars, while the 
largest, the Bank of Montreal, has paid-up stock amount¬ 
ing to twenty-seven and one quarter millions. The total 
combined capital of all the banks is one hundred and 
twenty-three millions. 

The great banks extend their service throughout the 
Dominion by means of branches. These now number 
nearly five thousand, and new ones are being constantly 
added. The branch plan is the most striking difference 
between Canada’s banking system and ours, which pro¬ 
hibits the establishment of branches except within a 
bank’s home city, and, under certain regulations, in 
foreign countries. The larger Canadian banks are rep¬ 
resented by their own branches in every city, from coast 
to coast, while the Bank of Montreal alone has more than 
six hundred agencies. Nearly all the banks have their 
head offices in Eastern Canada. Six of them are located 
in the province of Quebec, seven in Ontario, and one each 
in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Three of 
the banks in Quebec are controlled by the French Cana¬ 
dians. Their combined capital is just under nine million 
dollars, or not quite half that of the Royal Bank of 
Canada, the second largest in the Dominion. 

An official of the Canadian Bankers’ Association has 
explained to me some of the advantages of this system. 
He said: 


70 



When the discoverers sailed up the St. Lawrence to what is now Mont¬ 
real they thought these rapids just above the city blocked their passage 
to China, and so named them “La Chine.” 



Montreal’s rise as a great port began a century ago when the Lachine 
Canal was built around the rapids, and gave the city a water passage to the 
upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. 











Many homes have the Rideau Canal and its fringe of park at their 
front door. Built originally for military reasons, the canal now makes 
possible a boat trip through the Rideau Lakes to the St. Lawrence. 




CANADA’S BIG BANKS 


“Our plan of branch banks is based partly on the 
principle that there is more strength in a bundle of fagots 
joined together than there is in the same number of sticks 
taken separately. Poor management or bad times, under 
your system, may bring disaster to a single bank, whereas 
with us losses in any branch would be easily absorbed in 
a great volume of business covering the whole country, 
and the shock hardly felt at all. Under our system it is 
a simple matter for a bank to concentrate its funds in the 
districts where they are most needed, and money flows 
easily into the channels where there is the greatest demand. 
This is of the utmost importance to Canada, for we have 
limited capital, and therefore must keep it liquid at all 
times. 

“Canada is still a young country, not yet done with 
pioneering, and its banks must lend a hand in promoting 
its development. When a branch bank is opened in a 
tent or shack in a new mining camp, the people know that 
the manager is there to give them service, and that he 
represents a strong institution with millions in assets. A 
remote fishing village or new paper-mill town is thus 
provided with banking facilities quite as effective as those 
of Montreal or Toronto. The difference in rates of in¬ 
terest charged is never more than two per cent., no matter 
how remote from the money centre a branch bank may 
be. The only reason it is ever higher is that where the 
operations of a branch bank are small, the overhead ex¬ 
penses are proportionately greater, and must be compen¬ 
sated for by the bank’s customers. In recent years our 
wheat farmers of southern Saskatchewan have been getting 
money cheaper than have the farmers of your North 
Dakota, just over the border. The banks represented in 
7i 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


our three prairie provinces frequently have more money 
on loan in that territory than the sum total of the deposits 
in all their branches in the same area.” 

The banks of Canada all obtain their charters from the 
Dominion government, and their operations are strictly 
defined by law. This law, known as the Canadian Bank¬ 
ing Act, dates from 1870, and it automatically comes up 
in Parliament for revision every ten years. Under the 
act, the banks are permitted to issue paper money, which 
ordinarily must not exceed the amount of their capital. 
Shareholders are made liable for the redemption of bank 
notes up to the amount of twice the value of the capital 
stock. In addition, each bank is required to keep on 
deposit with the government a sum equal to five per cent, 
of its note circulation. This goes into what is called the 
redemption fund, which was created to make it absolutely 
certain that in case of the failure of a bank, all its notes 
will be redeemed at face value. During the period from 
September to February, when the crops are moving to 
market, the banks may issue notes to fifteen per cent, in 
excess of their capital, but must pay a tax of five per cent, 
on all such extra circulation. 

Canada’s banks are not audited by government exam¬ 
iners, as with us, but each bank must submit a monthly 
statement of its condition to the Minister of Finance. 
These reports are more detailed than our bank statements 
and are regularly published by the government. They 
show, among other things, the amount each bank has 
loaned to members of its board of directors, or to firms in 
which they are partners. The banks are not allowed to 
lend money on real estate; this service is confined to loan 
and mortgage companies. Nearly all the chartered banks 
72 


CANADA’S BIG BANKS 


of Canada conduct savings banks and many of them also 
operate trust companies. The activities of the latter are 
almost exclusively confined to acting as trustees and as 
administrators of estates. 

In the relations between the banks and the government, 
the Canadian Bankers’ Association plays an important 
part. It has a semi-official status, in that it was in¬ 
corporated by special act of Parliament, and is recognized 
as the joint representative of all the chartered banks. 
It establishes clearing houses, supervises the issues of 
bank notes, and manages the central gold reserves. The 
chief executive officers of the Association are frequently 
consulted by the government on financial questions. 

During my stay in Montreal I had an interview with 
Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor, president of the Associa¬ 
tion and general manager of the Bank of Montreal, the 
oldest and largest financial institution in Canada. In 
the Dominion, the chief executive of a bank is called the 
manager. While the president occupies an important 
position as chairman of the board of directors, he has 
not the same relation to the daily transaction of business 
as is usually the case with us. Canada’s banks are like¬ 
wise distinguished for the long service of the men in charge 
of their affairs. At the Bank of Montreal, for example, 
the president and manager have put in, between them, 
nearly one hundred years with the one institution. In 
all the banks, as a rule, the men in authority have risen 
from the ranks to their present positions. 

The Bank of Montreal is one of the great banks of the 
world. It was founded more than one hundred years 
ago, about the time that James Monroe was beginning his 
first term as President of the United States. In those 
73 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

days, there was still fresh in the minds of the Canadians 
knowledge of disastrous financial methods that had been 
common in both the American colonies and’Canada. In 
the time of the French, for example, one of the governors, 
not receiving funds expected from home, cut playing cards 
into small pieces, and wrote thereon the government's 
promises to pay. These he distributed among his unpaid 
soldiers, and '‘card money," as it was called, continued 
to circulate for a great many years. Our own colony of 
Massachusetts, learning of this easy method of “making" 
money, produced a similar currency which later led to the 
phrase “not worth a continental." Even after banks 
were established in Canada, their notes had different 
values in various parts of the country. 

The home of the Bank of Montreal in St. James Street 
faces the old Place d'Armes, a large square where formerly 
stood the stockade built for protection against the Indians. 
Now it is the centre of the financial district of Montreal, 
and, indeed, of all Canada. Of the total capital of Can¬ 
ada's banks, considerably more than half is held by in¬ 
stitutions having their main offices in this city. 

When I went to call upon Sir Frederick, I passed 
through a doorway supported by huge Corinthian pillars. 
Once inside, I found a banking room larger than any I 
have ever seen in the United States. Its great size, and 
the rows of counters and wicket windows reminded me 
somewhat of the New York railroad stations and their 
batteries of ticket offices. The roof, more than one 
hundred feet above the floor, is supported by columns of 
black granite from Vermont, each as big around as a 
flour barrel and as bright as polished jet. The building 
has not the shine and new look of some of our great banks, 
74 


CANADA’S BIG BANKS 


but everything about it is stately, and the servants are as 
imposing as those of the Bank of England. A sleek, black¬ 
haired attendant, who looked like Jerry Cruncher, wear¬ 
ing a blue suit trimmed with red and a bright red vest 
with brass buttons, ushered me into Sir Frederick’s office. 

In speaking about Canadian banking, Sir Frederick said: 

“ By means of our branches in all parts of Canada we 
have our hand on the pulse of the whole country. Every 
one of the great banks receives constantly from its own 
representatives accurate information of the state of busi¬ 
ness in his locality. We do not have to depend upon 
friendly correspondents or outside agencies, but know 
promptly and at first hand just what is going on. In this 
way we can always anticipate the needs of a particular 
section, and act accordingly. We can see the signs of any 
trouble ahead, and adopt measures to prevent disaster. 
The managers of our branches are responsible directly to 
us, and are therefore not likely to be influenced so much 
by purely local considerations as might be the case under 
a different system. On the other hand, it is our practice 
to include in our board of directors men who reside in 
western and central Canada, and are therefore in close 
touch with conditions in those sections.” 

“With such sources of information,” I said, “you should 
be in a position to judge of the condition of Canada as a 
whole. I wish you would tell me, Sir Frederick, just how 
you see her situation?” 

“Canada is suffering from three great disadvantages,” 
he replied. “ I don’t wish to emphasize our troubles, but 
there is no country without them, and we have our share, 
just as does the United States. Our handicaps are the 
high cost of living, high taxation, and loss of population.” 

75 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


“But is Canada losing population?” I asked. 

“ I have mentioned these difficulties in the inverse order 
of their importance,” said Sir Frederick. “Our loss of 
population is not only the most serious problem, but it 
grows out of the other two. Here we are, a nation of 
some eight million people. To the south of us is your 
country, with a population twelve times as great. You 
are the richest country in the world to-day. Canada oc¬ 
cupies the north end of the continent, and while she is 
larger than the United States in area, and can match you 
in some of her natural resources, there are some things 
that we lack. For example, we cannot grow cotton. We 
have no hard coal. Most of our soft coal lies on our coasts, 
while a great part of our industry and population is located 
in the eastern and central sections of the country. This 
year, I believe, our bill for coal from the United States will 
be something like one hundred and twenty-five million 
dollars, or nearly thirteen dollars per capita of our total 
population. 

“We used to be a country of low costs and low taxes,” 
continued Sir Frederick. “Now we are nearly up to you 
with regard to both the cost of living and high taxes. 
On the other hand, you have created a partial vacuum in 
the United States by your restrictions on immigration. 
These do not, however, apply to Canadians. Just as 
great bodies exercise a certain power of attraction upon 
smaller ones, so your one hundred and ten millions draw 
upon our eight millions. You are admitting fewer immi¬ 
grants than your country could easily absorb, with the 
result that you afford opportunities to our people to 
better their condition. Strange as it may seem to you, 
there are many of us who prefer, no matter what happens, 
76 


CANADA’S BIG BANKS 


to live our lives under the British flag, but there are 
also others to whom this does not seem so important. It 
is they who drift over to you.” 

While Sir Frederick thus outlined the problems con¬ 
fronting his country, his further remarks made it quite 
clear that he firmly believes in her future and is proud 
that he has a part in her development. 

In talking with business men, I find that they consider 
that Canada has been especially fortunate in the extension 
of her banks abroad. The Royal Bank of Canada and 
others have branches in the United States and Great Bri¬ 
tain, as well as in France and Spain. The branch banks of 
Canada furnish the entire banking system of Newfound¬ 
land, and I have myself done business with their branches 
in the course of my travels in South and Central America, 
the British and other European West Indies, Cuba, and 
Mexico. Canada’s branch banks have gone to those coun¬ 
tries with which the Dominion has the largest foreign 
trade, and are an important factor in promoting Cana¬ 
dian business abroad. They furnish Canadian exporters 
with first hand data on markets, tariffs, and credits in 
foreign countries. They help to finance exports and also 
aid the importers to secure materials they need from other 
lands. An American banking expert has made the state¬ 
ment that with the exception of Great Britain, Canada has 
the best banking facilities for foreign trade of any country 
in the world. 

I find that the Dominion is gaining in financial strength. 
In the last ten years the assets of her banks have increased 
seventy per cent., and the bank deposits have practically 
doubled. At the same time the value of her production, 
both in agriculture and industry, has mounted far above 
77 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


what it was before the World War. There is much evi¬ 
dence to show that the people themselves are better off 
than they used to be. For one thing, they have nearly 
two thousand million dollars on deposit in the chartered 
banks, an average of one hundred and eighty-eight dollars 
per person. They are buying more life insurance than ever 
before, the total value of the policies now in force in Canada 
amounting to over three thousand five hundred millions of 
dollars. If they continue to increase at the present rate, 
by 1947 the lives of Canadians will be insured to the 
amount of more than twelve thousand millions. This 
insurance represents a sum that will be sufficient to buy 
three million homes, to keep in comfort sixteen hundred 
and eighty thousand people, or to educate about four 
million Canadian children. 


78 



“From my window overlooking the wooded ravine through which the 
Rideau Canal descends in locks to the Ottawa River, I can see the towers 
of the university-like quadrangle of government buildings.” 







The library of Parliament stands on the high bank of the Ottawa 
River, a bit of old England in the Canadian capital. It survived the fire 
that destroyed the House and Senate chambers. 




CHAPTER XI 


OTTAWA—THE CAPITAL OF THE DOMINION 

I HAVE come to Ottawa to get a “close-up” of the 
government of Canada, and to see for myself if the 
city deserves its name, the “Washington of the North/' 
Ottawa gives one an impression of vigour, youth, and 
energy. It seems up to the minute, and not hanging on 
the coat-tails of the past like Quebec. It has some of the 
English flavour of Halifax, but is more modern. Like 
Washington, it is built on plans that, as they are de¬ 
veloped, will emphasize its natural beauties. 

Ottawa is becoming a centre of intellectual life as well 
as of political activity. The city is attracting people of 
wealth and leisure who find it a pleasant place of residence 
for all or a part of the year. The government service in¬ 
cludes men and women of unusual attainments, who are 
less likely to lose their places on account of politics than 
those holding similar offices in the United States. Ottawa 
is also becoming the headquarters for scientific and other 
organizations, and is developing rapidly as an educational 
centre. 

Washington has the Potomac, but this capital is on 
the banks of two rivers, the Ottawa and the Rideau. Its 
site was chosen only after a bitter struggle between rival 
cities. Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto each 
wanted the honour, but in 1859 all gracefully accepted 
the arbitration of Queen Victoria, who chose Ottawa. 
79 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


It was then a town of less than ten thousand people. It 
now has more than one hundred thousand. It lies in the 
province of Ontario, but is separated from Quebec only 
by the Ottawa River. 

In contrast with our national capital, Ottawa is an 
important city in its own right aside from the presence 
of the Dominion government. It is one of the chief lum¬ 
ber centres of all Canada, and besides saw mills and paper 
mills, has a match factory that is among the largest in the 
world. These industries are run by water-power. Ottawa 
is at the head of navigation of the Ottawa River, which 
here is broken by the Chaudiere Falls. When Champlain 
saw these falls the tumbling waters presented a beautiful 
spectacle. Now they are reduced and obscured by mills 
and power stations. There is about two million horse¬ 
power available within fifty miles, one twentieth of which 
is developed. 

Many of the industries based on the water-powers and 
the lumber of the Ottawa district are in Hull, across the 
river. Hull has about thirty thousand people, nearly all 
French Canadians. Its population is temporarily in¬ 
creased each evening, as streams of Ottawans cross the 
bridges from the bone dry province of Ontario to the beer 
and wine cafes of the adjoining territory. 

To appreciate all the beauties of the capital one must 
ride over its thirty miles of boulevards and park drives. 
The Rideau Canal flows through the heart of the city, 
giving a picturesque appearance to its business districts, 
and lending a delightful aspect to the streets and homes 
in the residential sections. There are block after block 
of attractive houses that have the canal at their front 
doors, and others with the canal in the rear. I noticed 
80 


OTTAWA—THE CAPITAL OF THE DOMINION 


more than one canoe moored, so to speak, in a backyard. 

Indeed, the city seems entirely surrounded by water 
and parks. Besides the Rideau Canal, there is the river 
of the same name, with well-kept parks along its banks. 
The most commanding sites on the hillsides overlooking 
the rivers are occupied by fine public buildings and mil¬ 
lionaires’ residences. There are numerous yacht and 
canoe clubs, while on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, 
above the Chaudiere Falls, are several golf courses. In 
their clubs the Canadians seem to be content to do things 
on a less elaborate scale than is common in the States, 
thus making it possible for men and women of moderate 
means to belong without feeling extravagant. In fact, 
though none know better than the Canadians how to 
entertain elaborately whenever they choose to do so, they 
live more simply than we, and spend more time in out¬ 
door recreations. 

Imagine yourself at my side as I write these words, and 
look with me out of my hotel window. We are in the 
Chateau Laurier, a modern hotel built of light-coloured 
stone in the design of a French chateau. It was erected 
by the Grand Trunk Railroad, but now, like the railroad, 
is operated by the government. It faces Connaught 
Square, opposite the Union Station, with which it is con¬ 
nected by an underground passage. 

If we were to fall from our window, we should land on 
the bank of the Rideau Canal as it comes out from under 
Connaught Square. The canal divides Ottawa into two 
parts. East of the canal is Lower Town, where most of the 
French residents live. To the east also is Sandy Hill, a 
fine residential quarter. Just below us the canal descends 
through a ravine down to the level of the Ottawa River. 

81 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Here there are six locks forming a water stairway. The 
canal connects the Ottawa River with Kingston, on Lake 
Ontario. It was constructed chiefly for military purposes. 
After the War of 1812, the Canadians felt that they needed 
an inland waterway between Montreal and the Lakes that 
would not be exposed to attack from the American side. 
For many years Ottawa bore the name of Bytown, after a 
military engineer, Colonel By, who built the canal. 

Now look across the ravine through which the canal 
drops down to the river. There are the government build¬ 
ings, arranged in a quadrangle. They are massive struc¬ 
tures of rough stone and Gothic architecture that crown 
the bluff one hundred and sixty feet above the water. 
They look more like one of our universities than any of our 
capitols. The Parliament building, with its back to the 
river, forms one side of the quadrangle. In front of it 
are several acres of lawn that slope gently down to Welling¬ 
ton Street. Facing the Parliament building are other 
government offices, business buildings, and the white 
marble home of the Rideau Club, where politicians from 
all Canada gather during the legislative sessions. 

The government has bought several city blocks near 
the Parliament quadrangle, on which it will some day erect 
appropriate structures to house its various departments. 
Some of them, meanwhile, are accommodated in all sorts 
of office buildings and remodelled dwellings, a condition 
that also reminds me of Washington. This fact shows, 
too, that in the face of the continual cry for greater 
economy the government machine in Canada is, like our 
own, getting bigger every year. 

The present Parliament house is a new building that 
will have cost, when complete, nearly twelve million 
82 


OTTAWA—THE CAPITAL OF THE DOMINION 


dollars. It is on the site and about the size of the one 
burned in 1916, except that it has one story more, and 
its square Gothic tower will be within two feet as high 
as the dome of the United States Capitol. The entrance 
hall, which forms the base of this tower, is a veritable for¬ 
est of pillars that uphold Gothic arches. The arches 
and walls have a dappled gray-white appearance, due to 
fossils in the Selkirk limestone. Arched corridors lead 
to the Senate wing on the right, to the House of Commons 
on the left, and straight ahead into the library, the only 
part of the original building not destroyed by the fire. 

I found the Senate chamber a beautiful room, handsomely 
appointed. Its walls are lined with large paintings of 
Canadian troops in action in the World War. The ninety- 
six senators who represent the various provinces are ap¬ 
pointed for life by the government in power whenever 
vacancies occur. Seats in this body are often handed out 
as political plums. The Canadian Senate has not nearly 
as much power in national affairs as the upper house of our 
Congress, but a seat in it means both honour and a living. 

The House of Commons, the real arena of Canadian 
political life, is a long, high-ceilinged room, with a broad 
aisle extending from the door to the speaker's dais. On 
each side of the aisle are rows of double desks behind 
which sit the two hundred and thirty-five members. 
Those belonging to the majority party are on the speaker’s 
right, and those of the opposition on his left. The speak¬ 
er’s big chair is patterned after the one in the English 
House of Commons. I sat in it and found it very un¬ 
comfortable. Above it is the coat of arms of Canada, 
carved in wood from Westminster six hundred years old. 
All around the chamber are galleries for visitors. 

83 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


The members of the Canadian Congress are not as 
generously provided for as ours. They get salaries of four 
thousand dollars a year, with nothing extra for secretaries. 
Instead of cash mileage allowances they receive railroad 
passes. The Parliament must meet every year, and the 
sessions usually last from early in January until May or 
June. Because of the tendency of members to go home 
before the adjournment, the House passed a law imposing 
fines of twenty-five dollars a day for absences during the 
final two weeks. Our Congress might do well to enact a 
similar law. 

Yesterday morning I drove out to Rideau Hall, a big 
gray stone mansion in park-like grounds overlooking the 
Rideau and Ottawa rivers. It is the residence of the 
Governor-General of Canada, the representative of His 
Majesty, the King of Great Britain, and the nominal head 
of the Canadian government. The Canadians pay him a 
princely salary, furnish him this palatial country resi¬ 
dence, and make him a generous allowance for entertain¬ 
ment and travel. They sincerely desire that he enjoy his 
five years among them, provided that he does not interfere 
in the conduct of their affairs. 

“Just consider,” said a Canadian statesman to me to¬ 
day, that the position of the Governor-General in Canada 
is identical with that of the King in Great Britain. He is 
a symbol of the unity and continuity of the empire, but 
his executive duties are purely formal, as he must not take 
the initiative and must always get the advice of his minis¬ 
ters. Control of the government may shift from one 
party to another here as in England, but the Governor- 
General, like the King, continues undisturbed in his office. 
When his term expires the King names his successor, but 
84 


OTTAWA—THE CAPITAL OF THE DOMINION 


no government in London dreams of making the appoint¬ 
ment until it has consulted with Ottawa and ascertained 
that the man chosen is acceptable to us/' 

The speaker was a man who has frequently held high 
offices in the government. Like other Canadians I have 
met, he believes his country has a more democratic form of 
government than that of the United States. 

“You know," said he, “we in Canada marvel at the 
strange spectacle you sometimes have in Washington of a 
president of one party confronted by a majority in Con¬ 
gress of another party. To us, responsible popular 
government under such conditions is unthinkable. The 
majority in the House of Commons always forms our 
government, or administration, as you call it, and the ma¬ 
jority leader becomes premier and head of the cabinet. 
As long as it is supported by a majority of that house, the 
cabinet is the supreme power of the land in federal affairs. 
As soon as it ceases to be supported by the majority, it 
loses the right to govern and a new ministry comes in. 
Under our system an election must be held every five years, 
but it may be held oftener. For example, a prime minis¬ 
ter who has met defeat in the Commons may advise a 
dissolution of Parliament and appeal at once to the people 
in a general election. You Americans vote by the calen¬ 
dar, every two or four years; we vote on specific issues as 
the need arises. Every one of our cabinet ministers is an 
elected member of the House of Commons or a member of 
the Senate, and must answer for all his official acts on the 
floor of the House." 

I asked as to the present attitude toward the United 
States. 

“ It sterns to me," was the reply, “the relations between 

85 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

Canada and the United States were never better than they 
are to-day. The ancient grudges on our side of the border, 
and the loose talk of annexation or absorption on yours, 
are now happily things of the past. While we have an 
area greater than yours, and vast wealth in natural re¬ 
sources, the fact that our population is only one twelfth 
of yours means that you will for years to come exercise a 
strong influence upon Canada. 

"When you consider that the two countries have a joint 
border more than three thousand miles long, on which there 
is no armed force whatsoever; that they have created one 
joint commission that settles all boundary disputes and an¬ 
other that disposes of questions concerning waters common 
to both countries; that we are your second best customer 
and that you are a large investor in our enterprises; that 
many of our wage-workers have gone to you and many of 
your farmers have come to us—taking all these things into 
consideration, one may say that the two peoples have man¬ 
aged to get along with one another in pretty good fashion. 

"By closing your markets to us, through high tariffs, 
you sometimes make things a bit difficult for some of our 
people. On the other hand, we have erected some tariff 
barriers of our own. Our fisheries, fruit industries, and 
manufactures now demand protection, just as your farmers 
and others insist on having tariffs against some Canadian 
products. Our people are divided by sectional interests, 
just as yours are, and both governments have difficulty, 
at times, in reconciling conflicting desires. But I think 
Washington and Ottawa will always understand one an¬ 
other, and will work out successfully their mutual problems 
of the future.” 

Few Americans realize how independent Canada is. 

86 



Canada’s half million acres of timber contain fifty per cent, of the 
forest resources of the entire British Empire. The revenue from lumber 
and wood pulp ranks next in value to that from agricultural products. 






It takes a woodpile as big as a large apartment house to carry one 
of Ottawa’s pulp mills through the winter. These logs will make enough 
news print to paper two roads reaching around the world. 















OTTAWA—THE CAPITAL OF THE DOMINION 


She pays not a dollar in taxes to the British, nor does she 
receive any funds from the Imperial Treasury. The re¬ 
lations between the Dominion and the Empire are not 
fixed by law, but, like the British constitution, are un¬ 
written and constantly changing. Canada maintains a 
High Commissioner in London, concedes certain tariff 
preferences to Great Britain and the other dominions, and 
her premier takes part in the imperial conferences in 
London. In all other respects she goes along in her own 
way and does exactly as she pleases. She played a great 
part in the World War, and would undoubtedly fight again, 
but only of her own free will. The people regard the 
Dominion as a member of a '‘Commonwealth of Nations” 
united under the British flag, and care little for talk of 
empire. They have even passed a law putting an end to 
the system whereby the Crown conferred titles on dis¬ 
tinguished Canadians. 


87 


CHAPTER XII 


THE LUMBER YARD OF AN EMPIRE 

I AM in the heart of one of the great timber producing 
districts of Canada. Every year millions of feet of 
logs are floated down the Ottawa River. This stream 
is eight hundred miles long, and, with its tributaries, 
taps a vast area of forests that feed the maws of the paper 
and the saw mills of the city of Ottawa. I have watched 
the latter at their greedy work, which they carry on at 
such a pace that the cry is being raised that the woodlands 
of the Dominion are being denuded, and that conservation 
measures must be adopted. 

1 have seen great tree trunks squared into timbers so 
fast that it was only a matter of seconds from the moment 
they came wet out of the river until they were ready for 
market. My neck aches from looking up at log piles as 
high as a six-story apartment, waiting to be converted 
into matches in one of the world’s greatest match fac¬ 
tories. You can imagine the size of its output when I tell 
you that in one year it paid the government nearly two 
million dollars in sales taxes. At other mills piles of pulp- 
wood, nearly as big, are soon to become paper, and in one 
I watched huge rolls of news-print taken off the machines 
and marked for shipment to the United States. 

Canada is cutting down her forests at the rate of about 
three thousand millions of feet a year. Still this is only a 
fraction of one per cent, of the estimated timber resources of 


THE LUMBER YARD OF AN EMPIRE 


Canada, and the cutting can go on for a century before the 
supply is consumed. In the area of her forests the Domin¬ 
ion is exceeded only by Russia and the United States and 
she is second to us in the amount of lumber produced. The 
British Empire reaches around the globe, but half of all its 
forest wealth is in Canada. Not only the United King¬ 
dom, but South Africa, the West Indies, Australia, and 
New Zealand depend on this country for a good part of 
their lumber supply. 

The Canadians are now getting from their trees a per 
capita revenue of about seventy-five dollars a year, and 
this income their government is trying to safeguard. They 
see in us a terrible example of the extravagant use of 
natural resources. Of our eight hundred and twenty-two 
million acres of virgin forest, only one sixth is left, which 
we are cutting at a rate that will exhaust it in twenty-five 
years. This does not allow for new growth, which we are 
eating up four times faster than Nature produces it. 

More than nine tenths of all the forest lands of Canada 
are owned by the government, so that she is in better posi¬ 
tion than we to control the cutting and provide for the 
future. In practically every province, lands good only 
for trees are no longer sold, and one fourth of the forest 
areas have been permanently dedicated to timber pro¬ 
duction. Each province administers its own forests, and 
there is much similarity in their conservation measures 
and other restrictions. The usual practice is to sell cut¬ 
ting rights to the highest bidders, under conditions that 
yield substantial revenues to the government and make 
it possible to supervise operations. 

It is estimated that two thirds of the original stands of 
timber have been destroyed by forest fires, which are still 
89 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


causing enormous losses. Large sums collected monthly 
from the timber users are being spent for fire protection. 
Every railroad is compelled by law to maintain extensive 
patrols on account of the sparks from locomotives. Sev¬ 
eral of the provinces use airplanes equipped with wireless 
telephones or radios to enable their observers to report 
instantly any blaze they discover. Some of these planes 
are large enough to carry crews of eight or ten men, who 
swoop down upon a burning area as soon as it is sighted. 
In Manitoba an airplane recently carried firefighters in 
thirty-two minutes to a forest that was three days’ canoe 
journey from the nearest station. 

Suppose we go up in one of these patrol planes, and take 
a look at the forests of Canada. We shall have to travel 
over one million square miles, for that is their area. One 
fourth of the land of the Dominion is wooded. The for¬ 
ests begin with the spruces of the Maritime Provinces and 
the south shore of the St. Lawrence and extend across 
the continent to the Pacific slope, and northward to the 
sub-arctic regions. There is still much hardwood left, es¬ 
pecially north of the Great Lakes, but the conifers, or ever¬ 
greens, make up about eighty per cent, of the standing tim¬ 
ber, and furnish ninety-five per cent, of the lumber and the 
pulpwood. In passing over southern Manitoba, Saskat¬ 
chewan, and Alberta, we shall see a vast area of prairies, 
the lands which now form the great wheat belt. The 
foresters say this land once had forests but that they 
were destroyed by fire in ages past. 

We see the finest trees near the end of our air journey. 
This is in British Columbia, a province that contains the 
largest, most compact, and most readily accessible stand 
of merchantable timber in all the world. It has more 
90 


THE LUMBER YARD OF AN EMPIRE 


than half the saw timber of Canada. In this area, which 
includes the Rocky Mountains, the Douglas fir is the pre¬ 
dominant type. The trees are sometimes forty, fifty, and 
sixty feet thick, and a single log will make a load for a car. 
A whole tree may fill a train when cut into boards. Here 
sixty-foot timbers that will square two or three feet are 
nicknamed “ toothpicks.” 

Twenty years ago the chief commercial wood of Canada 
was white pine. It was then the aristocrat of the north 
woods, and was cut from trees between one hundred and 
fifty and three hundred years old. Its place has now been 
taken by the spruces, of which there are five varieties. 
The spruces form about one third of all the standing tim¬ 
ber of Canada. The annual cut amounts to something like 
two thousand million feet, or enough to build a board walk 
sixteen feet wide all the way around the world. Notwith¬ 
standing this the government foresters estimate that 
within the last twenty years insects and fires have de¬ 
stroyed twice as much spruce as the lumberjacks have cut 
down. 

Canada’s supply of spruce is of enormous interest to us, 
for it feeds a great many of our printing presses. In one 
single year Canada has cut as much as four million cords of 
pulpwood, and four fifths of this goes to the United States 
in the form of logs, pulp, and finished paper. We Ameri¬ 
cans are the greatest readers on earth. We consume about 
one third of the total world output of news-print paper. 
Our presses use more than two million tons in a year, or 
nearly twice as much as Europe, which has five times our 
population. 

A generation ago Canada had not a dozen pulp mills, 
and only ten years ago its product was but one sixth 
91 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


that of the United States. Since then our production 
has hardly increased, but the Canadian output has so 
grown that it will soon exceed that of the States. In¬ 
deed, the industry now ranks second in the Dominion. 
I have before me estimates showing that machines already 
ordered for new mills and additions will add to the Cana¬ 
dian capacity something like four hundred thousand tons 
a year. Canada now has more than one hundred paper 
mills, and if all were run full time at full speed, they would 
turn out nearly two and one half million tons of paper in 
a year. The world’s largest ground pulp mill is at Three 
Rivers, in Quebec, the great paper-making centre I have 
mentioned in another chapter. That province has also 
the largest single news-print mill, with machines that are 
turning out a continuous sheet of paper more than nine¬ 
teen feet wide, at the rate of about eleven miles an hour, 
or eighty thousand miles a year. Not long ago one hun¬ 
dred tons of paper a day was the largest capacity of any 
mill. Now this is almost the standard unit in the indus¬ 
try. A four-hundred-ton mill is operating at Abitibi, 
and plants of five-hundred-ton daily capacity are already 
planned for. 

It takes about a cord of wood to make a ton of news¬ 
print, or enough, if rolled out like a carpet, to paper the 
pavement of a city street from curb to curb for a distance 
of three and one half miles. A year’s output of a hundred- 
ton mill would make a paper belt six feet wide reaching 
four times around the waist of old Mother Earth. Take a 
big Sunday newspaper and spread its sheets out on the 
floor. You will be surprised at the area they cover. Now 
if you will keep in mind that it sometimes takes more than 
a hundred tons of paper to print a single issue you will 
92 


THE LUMBER YARD OF AN EMPIRE 


realize how fast the forests of Canada are being converted 
into paper sufficient to blanket the earth. 

It is several centuries since Shakespeare found 

Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

Sermons in stones and good in everything. 

It remained, however, for our age, and especially North 
America, to make these tree tongues speak. The world 
never had enough paper until the process of making it from 
wood was discovered, and even now it can hardly cut down 
its forests fast enough to satisfy the insatiable demand of 
the printing press. I have visited paper mills in both the 
United States and Canada, and have watched the miracle 
of transforming a log into the medium of paper that carries 
the messages of our presidents, the doings of Congress, the 
news sensations of the times, or the strips of comic pictures 
we see every morning. Let me tell you how it is done. 

Most of the Canadian paper mills are located on rivers. 
The trees are cut during the winter, and hauled on sledges 
over ice and snow to the banks of the nearest stream. In 
the spring the logs float down with the freshets, and the 
only transportation expense is the crews of men who follow 
the “drive” and keep the mass of logs moving. Some¬ 
times jams or blocks occur that can be loosened only by 
dynamite. As the logs move down stream the mills 
catch them with booms strung across the river. Each 
mill picks out its own logs and releases the rest to con¬ 
tinue their journey. 

Labour agents in Montreal, Quebec, and other cities are 
now recruiting gangs of lumberjacks for this season’s 
operations. A single firm of this city employs six thousand 
men and has two thousand at work in the woods every win- 
93 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


ter. The lumberjacks live in camps, which each year are 
pushed farther north as the forests diminish. The work is 
hard, but the men are well fed and have no expenses, so 
that they can, if they choose, come out of the woods in the 
spring with a good sum in cash. 

At a mill, the logs are fed into the machinery by means 
of conveyors, and they hardly stop moving until they come 
out as paper. The first step is to cut them into two-foot 
lengths and strip off the bark. Then they are ready for 
grinding. This is done in batteries of mills, each contain¬ 
ing a large grindstone making two hundred revolutions a 
minute. Several of these two-foot lengths are put into a 
mill at a time, and pressed against the grindstone in such 
a way that they are rapidly torn into fine splinters. As 
the wood is ground up it falls into the water in the lower 
part of the mill and flows off. 1 asked a workman to open 
a mill I was watching to-day. As he did so I reached in 
and drew out a handful of the dry pulp. It was hot, and I 
asked if hot water was used. He replied that the water 
went into the mill almost ice cold, but that the friction of 
grinding was so great that it soon boiled and steamed. 

The wet pulp passes through various mixing and bleach¬ 
ing processes, until it becomes a gray-white mush that 
looks like chewed paper. It is then ready for the paper 
machines. It flows first on to a broad belt of woven cop¬ 
per wire screening, many times finer than anything you use 
in your windows. As it passes over this moving belt, some 
of the water is sucked out, and a thin coating of pulp re¬ 
mains. This passes on to a cloth belting that carries it 
over and under a series of huge cylinders, heated by steam. 
These take out the rest of the water, and the pulp has be¬ 
come a sheet of hot, moist paper. Shiny steel rollers give 
94 



The increasing demands of our printing presses are pushing Canada’s 
lumber-jacks farther and farther into the forests to cut the spruce logs 
with which the paper mills are fed. 









Some of the money voted the Toronto Harbour Commission to pre¬ 
pare the port for the shipping of the future has been spent in providing 
the people with a great beach playground at Sunnyside. 



Although Ontario leads all other provinces in its industries, it is 
essentially an agricultural region, well adapted to mixed farming. The 
farmers have many cooperative organizations that also go in for politics. 










THE LUMBER YARD OF AN EMPIRE 


the paper a smooth, dry finish. It is then wound on great 
spindles, and made into the huge rolls that every one has 
seen unloaded at newspaper offices. 

In making paper, it is necessary to mix with the ground 
pulp a certain proportion of sulphite pulp, made by a 
chemical instead of a grinding process. For the sulphite 
the logs are cut into chips and put into great vats, where 
they are steam cooked with sulphurous acid. The acid dis¬ 
integrates the wood, just as the stomach digests food, but 
it does not destroy the fibre. The result is that sulphite 
pulp has a longer, tougher fibre than the pulp obtained by 
grinding, and for this reason it is mixed with the ground 
pulp to give the paper greater toughness and strength. 

Though it has not been very long since Canada dis¬ 
covered that her pulpwood forests are worth more than 
her gold mines, she is far from satisfied with the present 
situation. There is a growing movement in favour of 
stopping the export of pulpwood to the United States and 
insisting that it shall be manufactured into paper within 
the Dominion. It is claimed that this will not only check 
depletion of the forests, but will bring more paper mills to 
Canada. Those who support the plan have calculated 
that Canada now gets ten dollars out of every cord of pulp¬ 
wood exported, half of which goes to the railroads. If all 
the wood were milled before leaving the country, they say, 
Canada would get five times as much, or fifty dollars 
instead of ten out of each cord. The government has 
authority to enforce the prohibition demanded, but the 
proposal meets with considerable opposition. The small 
farmers especially say that they can now get better prices 
for the spruce cut on their wood lots than if their market 
was confined to Canada only. 

95 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


At the present time the total investment in Canadian 
paper and pulp mills is about four hundred million dollars, 
and the wages and salaries paid amount to over forty mil¬ 
lions a year. To manufacture all the pulpwood now cut 
every twelve months would require one hundred and fifty 
million dollars additional capital, the erection of more 
than thirty new mills with a capacity of one hundred tons a 
day each, and eight thousand employees earning in excess 
of eleven million dollars a year. 

As a matter of fact, our own paper business has already 
moved to Canada to a far greater extent than is commonly 
realized. Many of our largest newspapers have not only 
their own mills in Canada, but they own also the timber on 
thousands of square miles of forest lands. One estimate 
says sixty per cent, of the timber resources of Canada are 
now owned or controlled by Americans. The other day, 
while I was in Halifax, a group of Americans bought the 
timber on a seven-thousand-acre tract in Nova Scotia. 
There are many similar American holdings. 

Canada’s water-power and her paper and pulp industry 
have been developed together, and each is essential to the 
other. It takes practically one hundred horse-power to 
produce a ton of paper a day, and this means that the mills 
must locate near available water-power or pay big bills for 
fuel. One of the water-power experts at Ottawa tells me 
that on a recent date the paper and pulp mills were using 
more than six hundred and thirty-seven thousand hydro¬ 
electric horse-power every twenty-four hours, in contrast 
with only sixty-two thousand horse-power in the form of 
steam. Some of the mills get their power for only one tenth 
of a cent per kilowatt hour or one one-hundredth of what 
residents of Washington, D. C., pay for their electric light. 

96 


CHAPTER XIII 


/ 


TORONTO—THE CITY OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP 


S AID an American whom I met in Toronto the other 
day: 

| “I don’t care for this place; it’s too much like 
home. When I travel I want to see something 
different.” 

I don’t know just what this man hoped to find here in the 
second largest city in Canada. I fear that he expected to 
find Toronto so inferior that he would be able to indulge in 
some boasting at the expense of the Canadians. If so, he 
came to the wrong place, for, judged by American standards, 
Toronto is thoroughly alive, first class, and up-to-date. 

Located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, and the 
political and commercial capital of Ontario province, 
Toronto is the '‘Chicago of Canada.” It is larger than 
Buffalo or San Francisco, and nearly as big as Los Angeles. 
It is the greatest live-stock market of all Canada, and the 
chief butcher shop of the Dominion. Like Chicago, it is 
on the route of the transcontinental railroad lines. It is 
the centre of tourist travel to Niagara Falls, the Thousand 
Islands, and the vacation lands of the North. It supplies 
the mines, the mills, and the farms of a region rich in 
natural resources, and fast becoming as highly industri¬ 
alized as New England. Ontario does more than half of 
the manufacturing of Canada, and one third of the fac¬ 
tories of the province are located in Toronto. Seven of 
97 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


the great chartered banks of the Dominion have their 
home offices here, and the city is second only to Montreal 
in its financial strength. 

In Toronto, 1 find myself again in a city of twenty-story 
skyscrapers, big department stores, and American “hus¬ 
tle.” It is, I suppose, because it does not seem “foreign” 
that visitors from the States find this city disappointing. 
The people are mostly of British extraction, and, unlike 
Montreal, there are but few French, and comparatively 
few Catholics. 

The city was founded by Tories from New York just 
after our Revolutionary War, and it soon became the capi¬ 
tal of Upper Canada. Our soldiers burned it once and 
captured it twice during the War of 1812. Its name To¬ 
ronto, an Indian word meaning “place of meeting,” was 
chosen about a century ago. Since then the city has 
doubled in population and wealth every fifteen years. 

In the residential districts, I saw scores of magnificent 
homes that compare favourably with those of any of our 
large cities. The town is built entirely of brick, and sixty- 
seven percent, of the homes are occupied by their owners. 
The residents, all of whom seem to belong to a boosters' 
club, tell me that they have the lowest death rate but one 
of any city of five hundred thousand population in North 
America, and that they have fewer deaths from tuber¬ 
culosis than anywhere else on the hemisphere. 

1 have been out to Queen’s Park to see the provincial 
government buildings. Here also is Toronto University, 
the largest in the British Empire, with several thousand 
students of both sexes. The park is approached by Univer¬ 
sity Avenue, a broad street with rows of elm and chestnut 
trees on each side. There are many other schools and col- 
98 


TORONTO 


leges, making Toronto the educational centre of Ontario. 

It was at the University of Toronto that Dr. F. G. Bant¬ 
ing discovered insulin, the new treatment for diabetes ob¬ 
tained from the pancreas of cattle. Doctor Banting and 
his associates have since received many honours. The 
.Dominion government gave him seventy-five hundred 
dollars a year for life, so that he might continue his in¬ 
vestigations, while the provincial government has estab¬ 
lished him in a chair of medical research at Toronto 
University paying ten thousand dollars a year. Instead 
of commercializing his discovery, the doctor had it pat¬ 
ented in the name of the university, and the royalties are 
devoted to research. 

Toronto is about equidistant from New York and Chi¬ 
cago, and nearly midway between Winnipeg and Halifax. 
It is only three hundred and thirty-four miles from Mon¬ 
treal, but between the two cities are the rapids of the upper 
St. Lawrence, which so far have prevented the lake port from 
becoming accessible to large ocean-going vessels. The pres¬ 
ent canals along the St. Lawrence can accommodate ships 
up to twenty-five hundred tons, but Toronto has a plan for 
bringing ten-thousand-ton steamers to her front door. She 
proposes to overcome the rapids and shallows with lakes and 
canals, and at the same time utilize the fall of water, which 
exceeds two hundred feet, to generate electricity. 

The locks of the new and larger Welland Canal around 
Niagara Falls have been built thirty feet deep and eight 
hundred feet long. When this work is completed, the im¬ 
provement of the St. Lawrence will be the only thing 
needed to make possible the passage of deep-water ships 
from the Atlantic to Lake Superior. The St. Lawrence 
project has the enthusiastic support of the people of middle 
99 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Canada, who see their grain of the future going direct to 
Liverpool in steamers loaded at the lake ports. This will 
cut down the freight charges on every bushel and add mil¬ 
lions to the farmers' profits. 

Our own middle western states also want this Lakes-to- 
the-Atlantic waterway, but New York and Buffalo, which 
have grown fat on handling freight from the Great Lakes, 
oppose it. So does Montreal, for fear that her port 
might suffer, just as Quebec did when the St. Lawrence was 
dredged out from that city to Montreal. 

Since the St. Lawrence, for part of its course, borders the 
state of New York, the project requires the cooperation of 
the United States. The International Joint Commission, 
representing both Canada and the United States, after 
investigation, unanimously approved it. It recom¬ 
mended the construction of nine locks, thirty-three miles 
of canals, forty miles of lake channel, and one hundred 
miles of river channel improvements. It also recom¬ 
mended the construction of a hydro-electric power plant 
near Ogdensburg, New York, which, it is estimated, would 
produce sixteen hundred and forty thousand horse¬ 
power, to be divided between the United States and Can¬ 
ada. To do all this is comparable to the building of the 
Panama Canal. It is estimated that the job will take 
about eight years and will cost more than a quarter of a 
billion dollars. 

Meanwhile, Toronto is so sure that the project will be 
carried out that she has already spent more than twenty 
million dollars in getting her harbour ready for the busi¬ 
ness she expects in the future. Her port to-day is like a 
newly built palace, awaiting the birth of an heir to the 
throne, with the king still a bachelor. 


ioo 


TORONTO 


An island lying about a mile offshore from the city gives 
Toronto a natural harbour. The Harbour Commission 
has built breakwaters, channels, and anchorages, and 
erected piers and berthing spaces to accommodate fleets of 
large tonnage vessels. So far, however, these improve¬ 
ments are used mostly by passenger steamers handling the 
summer tourist travel to points on the lakes and along the 
St. Lawrence. In part the work of the Harbour Commis¬ 
sion has already paid for itself. It has reclaimed a large 
tract of marshland along the eastern shore of the harbour 
and converted it into industrial sites, equipped with docks, 
railroad tracks, and other facilities. There are now more 
than eight million dollars’ worth of buildings and machin¬ 
ery in operation on this area. 

The Harbour Commission has developed the lakeside not 
only for commercial purposes, but also for the use of the 
people. West of the city it has built Sunnyside beach, a 
half mile long, with accommodations of all kinds for 
seventy-five hundred bathers. Across the harbour is 
Island Park, another great playground. 

Toronto was the first city in the world to establish a 
municipal athletic commission to promote sports and 
outdoor games. Though baseball is not native to Canada, 
six thousand Toronto boys played in regularly organized 
leagues last summer, and eight thousand soccer or associa¬ 
tion football players were listed with the commission. 
The city maintains two public golf courses, and there are 
country clubs, canoe clubs, and yacht clubs. 

Another publicly owned institution in Toronto is an 
abattoir, built and operated by the city. Here any cattle 
dealer or local marketman may have his animals killed un¬ 
der the most sanitary conditions. The city owns also its 

IOI 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


waterworks and has a Hydro-Electric Commission which 
furnishes power to its factories and homes at low rates. 
It has invested more than two million dollars in grounds 
and buildings for the Canadian National Exhibition, held 
here every September with an attendance of over a mil¬ 
lion. 

Its street railway system is Toronto’s latest and largest 
venture in public ownership. Both the cars and the ser¬ 
vice are by far the best I have seen anywhere in Canada, 
and few of our cities can show better. The city paid forty- 
five million dollars for the property, and within two years 
it had doubled the single fare area, increased the mileage 
twenty-five per cent., built extensions out to the suburbs, 
replaced antiquated cars with the newest and best, and 
speeded up service. On the main lines, the cars are very 
large and during rush hours they are run in twos, coupled 
together. I n the newer cars the conductor sits perched in a 
cage in the middle. Passengers enter by the front door, and 
if they pass down the aisle to sit in the rear they pay the con¬ 
ductor as they go by. If they take seats in the front half, 
they do not pay their fares until they get up to leave by the 
door in the middle. It is interesting to know that the 
first electric street car in America was operated in Toronto. 

Conservative Montreal looks upon Toronto’s plunges in¬ 
to public works as the height of folly, and sometimes gives 
her sister city a lecture. Replying to such criticism, a local 
paper said the other day it supposed Montreal would have 
every Torontoan go to bed at night saying these verses: 

Oh, let us love our occupations. 

Bless the squire and his relations, 

Live upon our daily rations, 

And always know our proper stations. 

102 



Unlike Montreal and Quebec, Toronto is a city of sky-scrapers, and the 
Yonge Street canyon makes the American visitor feel much at home. 
Toronto has hustle, enterprise, and the courage to do whatever it pleases. 

































Flax raising has become important in southwestern Ontario. The 
crop competes with the best Russian product. The Canadians use 
labour-saving devices to keep costs down to European levels. 






TORONTO 


But Toronto comes honestly by its independent spirit 
and bold experiments for the public welfare. The entire 
province of Ontario is imbued with the same tendency. 
With an area eight times that of New York, it is, next to 
Quebec, the largest province of Canada, and with three 
million people, mostly of British extraction, excels them 
all in population. It is richer in mineral wealth, agricul¬ 
tural resources, and industrial development than any 
other province. The people believe in their future and 
they show the courage of their convictions when it comes 
to going in debt to back public enterprises. 

The province owns a railroad that taps the Cobalt silver 
mining district and the northern agricultural lands. The 
main line of the road extends from the Canadian Pacific 
and Canadian National lines at North Bay two hundred 
and fifty-three miles northward to Cochrane, where it meets 
the northernmost of the three transcontinental routes. 

A few years ago Ontario increased its expenditure for 
good roads from two million dollars a year to nine millions. 
It created the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission, which 
generates and distributes more electric power at lower 
rates than any other similar body in the world. The prov¬ 
ince pensions needy mothers, and its public health service 
furnishes serums and toxins free to the public. 

The Ontario parliament has no upper house, but only 
a single chamber to which members are elected by the 
votes of both men and women. Not long ago the farmers' 
organizations captured enough seats to give them control 
of the government. 

In Toronto I have seen so many familiar names on the 
factory buildings that I have had to ask myself whether I 
was in a British Dominion or back in the United States. 


103 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


These are the “branch plants” of American firms, estab¬ 
lished here to be inside Canada’s tariff wall and to get the 
benefit of the preferential tariffs conceded by Great Bri¬ 
tain and her dominions to Canadian products. From auto¬ 
mobiles to silverware, and from bridge steel to fountain 
pens, many of our best known American goods are not 
only used but made in Canada. Some of the branch 
plants bear the same names as at home, but many adopt 
for Canadian use designations that give no trace of their 
American origin. For example, world-famous corpora¬ 
tions that use “United States” or “American” as part of 
their names, are the “Dominion” this or the “Imperial” 
that in Canada. This policy caters to the growing move¬ 
ment among the people to buy only goods “made in 
Canada.” The American branch-plant system accounts 
in part for the resemblance of Toronto to American cities. 
On every hand I see electric signs, window displays, and 
bill-boards bearing the same appeals to buy the goods that 
are so extensively advertised at home. 

No one knows just how many American branch fac¬ 
tories Canada has, but their number is well over one thou¬ 
sand. There are more than two hundred in Toronto alone, 
and as many more elsewhere in southern Ontario. Mon¬ 
treal has many American branch plants and American 
owned enterprises. Its largest hotel belongs to an Ameri¬ 
can syndicate, and so does my hotel in Toronto. 

Americans control nine tenths of the automobile ac¬ 
cessory business of Canada, and in their branch plants they 
make three fifths of the Dominion’s automobiles. Prac¬ 
tically all of our well known firms devoted to low and 
moderate priced cars have big factories in Canada, and 
they do practically all their exporting to Australia, New 
104 


TORONTO 


Zealand, Great Britain, and South Africa through their 
Canadian branch plants. This export business amounts to 
more than twenty-five million dollars a year, while the cars 
made here for the Canadian market represent a value three 
times as great. 

In other lines American capital is conspicuous. Half 
of the Canadian rubber factories are owned by Americans, 
and nearly half of the meat packing, paint, brass, con¬ 
densed milk, car construction, and electrical apparatus 
industries represent American money. American con¬ 
trolled concerns do more than half of all the oil refin¬ 
ing, while two hundred and fifty million dollars of our 
money is invested in the pulp and paper industry. 

Altogether, it is estimated that American investments in 
government loans, corporation bonds, land mortgages, and 
industrial enterprises amount to two thousand five hun¬ 
dred million dollars. Our stake in Canada has been in¬ 
creasing rapidly ever since 1914, and now it nearly equals 
that of the British. Within a few years it will probably 
be much greater. Nearly one sixth of all the money we 
have invested in foreign countries is in Canada, and in 
return for the capital Canada is now buying from us more 
than three fifths of her annual thousand million dollar 
purchases abroad. In fact, her people are our best cus¬ 
tomers; their purchases of us amount to eighty-three 
dollars per capita a year as compared with five dollars 
for all Europe and fifty cents for China. 


105 


CHAPTER XIV 


WATERFALLS THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLE 

H OW much do you pay for the electric current that 
lights your home and runs your heater, vacuum 
cleaner, and washing machine? In Washington I 
am charged ten cents a kilowatt hour, and unless 
you are especially favourably located I venture your bills 
are figured at about the same rate. To be sure, the 
monthly expense is not great, but wouldn't you feel free 
to use more electricity if your bills were cut down one half 
or two thirds? 

That is just what has happened to hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of people in southern Ontario, and I have been devot¬ 
ing the last couple of days to finding out how it was done. 
I have made a special trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls, 
and am now writing almost in sight of those mighty waters. 
I have visited the world's biggest power station and talked 
here also with the engineers of the Ontario Hydro-Electric 
Power Commission, which sells the current to the public 
at cost. Again I am impressed with the enterprise and the 
courage of the people of this province, and the way they 
use their government to get what they want. 

Canada's water-power is, as you know, among her chief 
assets, and the Dominion is one of the greatest water¬ 
power countries on earth. Although the United States 
has more hydraulic power available for development, yet 
in proportion to her population Canada actually uses three 
106 


WATERFALLS THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLE 

times as much as we do. She has in her rivers and streams 
a total of about eighteen million low-water available horse¬ 
power, of which about one sixth is now being used. Que¬ 
bec and Ontario possess between them nearly two thirds 
of the total water-power resources, of which Ontario has 
the larger amount developed, and Quebec the more in re¬ 
serve. These two provinces, like the eastern United States, 
contain also the greater part of Canada’s industries, sev¬ 
enty per cent, of which are now run by water-power. 
This cheap power is one of the principal reasons why 
Ontario and Quebec do most of Canada’s manufacturing 
and have so many American branch plants. 

Ontario’s biggest single water-power is in the waters of 
Niagara Falls. As you know, the Niagara River connects 
Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It forms also a part of the 
boundary between the United States and Canada. For 
many years commercial power companies have operated on 
both sides of the Falls. By treaty, Canada and the United 
States have limited the commercial use of the Falls, and 
have fixed the amount of water that can be diverted from 
them at twenty thousand cubic feet a second on the 
American side, and thirty-six thousand feet on the Cana¬ 
dian side. This apportionment was made because the 
major part of the Falls is on Canada’s side of the boundary, 
and much power is imported by the United States from 
Canada. The engineers say that if the governments will 
let them they can divert much more of the water in such 
a way that the beauty of the Falls will not be impaired. 

The Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission has 
revolutionized the situation on the Canadian side. The 
Falls have been put to work directly for the people, pri¬ 
vate corporations and profits have been eliminated, and, 
107 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


through the building of a giant new power station, the 
mighty forces of the falling waters have been made more 
productive than ever before. The Commission is dis¬ 
tributing Niagara power to points two hundred and fifty 
miles away, and in addition is operating more than twenty 
additional power producing stations. It has built up a 
super-power system that covers southern Ontario. It 
also supplies power at the head of the Great Lakes. 
Through it more than three hundred cities, towns, and 
smaller municipalities are supplying themselves with power 
“at cost.” 

The Commission is the world’s largest publicly owned 
power enterprise, having assets worth two hundred and 
fifty million dollars. It is claimed that nowhere else on 
earth do so many people, spread over so large a territory, 
enjoy such low-cost electricity as is the case under Ontario 
“Hydro.” It distributes six hundred and fifty thousand 
horse-power in electrical energy, and, when all its present 
projects are in full operation, the daily output will be more 
than a million horse-power. Canada’s coal bill would be 
three hundred million dollars a year more if “Hydro” 
power were produced by fuel from mines. 

I can make you see in a flash just what all this means to 
the people. Below the mists of Niagara Falls the river is 
crossed by the Railway Arch Bridge. Half this bridge 
is lighted by an American company, and the other half 
by the current from the Canadian side. The lighting 
load for the lamps is the same in both sections, yet the 
cost last year of lighting the Canadian portion was one hun¬ 
dred and ten dollars, while the American company charges 
at its regular rates totalled two hundred and forty. Now 
you know why citizens in Ontario go to the polls and 
108 


WATERFALLS THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLE 


vote their municipalities into partnership with “Hydro,” 
as the Commission is popularly called. 

The “Hydro” was created because the towns of south¬ 
ern Ontario felt that they were not getting the full benefit 
of Nature’s great power station at their doors. They then 
secured a charter from the provincial legislature at Toronto 
to form a partnership for the purpose of buying power and 
selling it to themselves. The Ontario Hydro-Electric 
Commission was created to handle the business. In 1910 
it began operations by distributing one thousand horse¬ 
power, purchased under contract from a commercial com¬ 
pany at Canadian Niagara. Four years later it was selling 
seventy-seven thousand horse-power, and in 1917 it pur¬ 
chased outright the company from which it had been buy¬ 
ing current. Meanwhile, more and more cities and towns 
were joining the partnership, additional power stations 
were being bought and built to supply the growing de¬ 
mand, and as consumption rose rates went down. The 
provincial authorities are now talking about a shortage of 
power in the near future unless the scheme for building 
dams and canals along the St. Lawrence is started at once. 

I am told the operations of “Hydro” have not cost the 
taxpayers of Ontario a cent in interest charges or capital 
investment. The whole scheme actually pays for itself as 
it goes. This is how it is done: The provincial govern¬ 
ment acts as banker for the Commission, loaning it money 
with which to build power stations and transmission lines. 
These loans are covered by the pledges, in the form of bond 
issues, of the cities, through the Commission, to meet the 
interest and make repayment of the capital investment. 
Each city issues twenty-year bonds for its local central 
station and distributing system. Payments on both in- 
109 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


terest and principal are met out of each year's receipts, so 
that eventually the entire power system will be free of debt. 
Nearly fifty cities, in fact, are already in the clear on their 
investment, and each year brings others to the same situa¬ 
tion. 

The basic principle of “Hydro" is a partnership of 
municipalities to obtain power at cost. The Commission 
makes all the expenditures necessary to develop power and 
deliver it to the cities. It determines the rates at which 
the cities may re-sell the power to local consumers. Each 
year the probable cost of power is estimated for each city, 
with allowances for interest, depreciation, reserves, and 
contingencies. This fixes the rates for the next twelve 
months. At the end of the year, the actual cost is cal¬ 
culated. If the expense has been more than the rates 
previously fixed, the cities are called upon to make up 
the difference; if the cost has been less, the partners get re¬ 
bates on the year's bills. 

When I looked for the directing mind behind all this 
amazing development, I quickly found it. It is in the 
person of Sir Adam Beck, formerly a box manufacturer 
of London, Ontario, and the only chairman the Commission 
has ever had. He is one of the most popular figures in 
all Ontario, and it is largely to the organizing genius 
and driving power of his personality that the success of 
“ Hydro" is due. He sits in Parliament, where he keeps on 
the alert for the welfare of the Commission's work, and 
manages in person its relations with the provincial govern¬ 
ment. 

The cold facts about “Hydro" make it easy for Sir 
Adam to demonstrate its achievements. In his home town 
of London, for example, where formerly the monthly con- 
i io 



The Niagara Peninsula, along the north shore of Lake Erie, is one 
of the finest fruit-growing districts in the world. Among other advantages 
the farmers here have cheap power from the Ontario “Hydro”. 






The big ditch that feeds the giant power station was cut through solid 
rock for miles and carries a stream of water thirty-nine feet deep and 
fifty feet wide, or more than the flow of a river. 



A bucket of water dropped down this cliff to the Niagara River would 
strike with the force of thirty horse-power. Imagine 20,000 buckets 
dropped eyery second and you have the capacity of this 600,000 horse¬ 
power station. 




















WATERFALLS THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLE 


sumption of electricity averaged less than twenty kilowatt 
hours for each household, seventy-five kilowatt hours are 
now used. To an extent formerly undreamed of, power 
has been put into the homes of the people, and they are 
using electric appliances in far greater number than persons 
of similar circumstances in the United States. Electric 
cooking stoves are being installed in southern Ontario at 
the rate of one thousand a month. Workingmen’s wives 
have toasters, electric washers, electric fans, electric heat¬ 
ers, curling irons, and everything else the appliance com¬ 
panies can devise. 

The Commission is especially proud of the way it has 
taken electricity out to the farms. Private companies 
usually find rural extensions too expensive, on account of 
the long distances between installations, and the relatively 
small volume of current used. The Commission has now 
enough rural lines to reach from New York to Atlanta, and 
it serves as many country homes as there are people living 
on farms in Rhode Island. Although the rates are higher 
than in the cities, I find that a farmer can light his house 
and barns, run an electric stove and household appliances, 
and a three-horse-power motor besides, for from six to 
eight dollars a month. The farmers of Ontario can afford 
to use electricity to run their pumps, separators, churns, 
milking machines, sawmills, choppers, and threshers—not 
because they are richer than other farmers, but because of 
low-cost power. 

I have before me a schedule of the rates charged in the 
twelve largest cities of the province. For domestic service 
the average net cost ranges from 1.3 cents per kilowatt 
hour to 2.8 cents per kilowatt hour. The rates vary chiefly 
with distance. Toronto, ninety miles from Niagara, pays 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


2.1 cents per kilowatt hour, while Windsor, two hundred 
and fifty miles to the west, opposite Detroit, Michigan, is 
charged 2.6 cents. Commercial users, such as stores and 
office buildings, pay slightly higher rates, while factories 
are charged from $1-1.75 to $28.66 per horse-power per 
year. As with commercial companies, the “Hydro” 
rates decrease with the amount of power used. For house¬ 
holds the secondary or larger-user rate is nowhere more 
than 1.8 cents, and in most places it is less. In Toronto, 
the average household electric light bill is less than a dollar 
and a quarter a month. At Windsor it is less than a dol¬ 
lar and three quarters. In the city of London, Ontario, 
the household consumption of electricity has under 
“Hydro” increased more than four hundred per cent, and 
the average cost has been reduced to less than one fourth 
of the former charges. 


112 


CHAPTER XV 

Niagara’s giant power station 

H YDRO’S” biggest feat in physical construction 
is the great development, known as the Queens- 
ton Chippewa plant, on the Niagara River. 
This station is designed to produce six hundred 
thousand horse-power, or about one sixth as much as all 
the electrical energy now generated in Canada. Suppose 
we visit it with one of the engineers. Stepping into an 
automobile, we drive first toward the falls, now partly 
obscured in the clouds of mist from the tumbling, roaring, 
boiling waters. Our way lies through the park the Cana¬ 
dians have made so that the people may enjoy for all time 
the approaches to this monarch among the wonders of 
Nature. 

We stop at Chippewa, at the mouth of the Welland 
River. This stream used to empty into the Niagara River 
above the falls, but to-day its channel carries the water 
diverted from the Niagara for the supply of the power 
station. The river was deepened and widened for a dis¬ 
tance of four and a half miles, and then a canal was dug 
through the remaining eight and a half miles to the site of 
the plant. Now we turn back, and as our car passes over 
one of the numerous bridges across the big ditch, we look 
down upon a miniature Panama Canal, fifty feet wide at 
water level, and thirty-nine feet deep. In many places 
it was cut through hills of rock to a depth of more than 
11 3 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


one hundred feet. When the station is operated at full 
capacity, the flow of water through the canal is more 
than twice that of the Connecticut River. 

Seven miles below the falls we come to the power plant. 
If your nerves are steady, walk out to the cliff and see 
where we are. Look first across the great gorge. Those 
hills over there are in the state of New York. See their 
steep, rocky sides, with vari-coloured strata exposed by 
the wearing action of the Niagara River through millions 
of years. To our left, and hardly a mile away, the high 
plateau suddenly drops off; below it are the glistening 
waters of Lake Ontario. We are near the end of the escarp¬ 
ment over which Niagara Falls once plunged into the lake. 

Now look straight down; the Niagara River is three 
hundred feet below us. From this height it looks like an 
innocent stream. It is really a raging torrent in the final 
throes of its mad struggle to get into Lake Ontario. The 
workmen clinging to the sheer, rocky face of the cliff under 
our feet, and boring into it with their drills, seem like huge 
insects using their stingers. That big block of concrete, 
resting on a shelf carved out of the rock and washed by the 
current, is the power station. It has the dimensions of 
an eighteen-story office building, and part of it is lower 
than the surface of the river. 

The huge steel penstocks, or pipes, through which the 
water rushes to the waterwheels below, are set in grooves 
cut in the rock. Each of them is twice the diameter of a 
big dining-room table. The water enters the penstocks 
from a great pool fed by the canal and, dropping, creates 
this mighty stream of electrical energy, which surpasses 
any that can be produced right at the Falls. The reason 
for this is that while the total drop in the Niagara River 

114 


NIAGARA’S GIANT POWER STATION 


is three hundred and twenty-seven feet, the height of the 
Falls is only one hundred and sixty-seven feet. That 
is the maximum “head” of water available to the power 
stations located right at the Falls. But from where we stand 
the drop to the waterwheels is exactly three hundred and 
five feet, or nearly twice as great as that at the falls. This 
station, in other words, utilizes all except about twenty 
feet of the difference in level between Lake Erie and Lake 
Ontario. It does this by taking in the water of the Ni¬ 
agara River at Chippewa and carrying it for thirteen 
miles nearly to the end of the Niagara escarpment. 
There is a fall of only twelve feet in the whole length of 
the canal. 

Every cubic foot of water per second that flows through 
the penstocks generates thirty horse-power, as compared 
with about sixteen horse-power per foot per second devel¬ 
oped by the stations nearer the falls. The Canadians are 
thus making the water of Niagara work for the people at 
almost twice the efficiency ever obtained from its waters 
before. 

Let us see just what this means. An ordinary pail holds 
about one cubic foot of water. Suppose, as we stand on 
the brink of the gorge, I hand you pails full of water, and 
that you let them fall, one every second, to the river be¬ 
low. If the force of this fall could be applied to a machine 
as efficiently as flowing water, each pailful would generate 
electricity to the amount of thirty horse-power, or an 
amount about equal to the energy of a five-passenger tour¬ 
ing car when run at full speed. Imagine twenty thousand 
such pailfuls being fed into the penstocks every time your 
watch ticks, and you will then understand what the six hun¬ 
dred thousand horse-power capacity of this station means. 

115 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Step with me into the electric elevator that goes down 
the face of the cliff to the power house. At the bottom we 
find the offices of the engineers and experts in charge. 
There is, also, a restaurant for the workers. One huge 
room is filled with the switches and recorders which 
keep these men constantly informed of conditions in all 
parts of the plant and enable them to control every detail. 
We descend still farther to the lower levels, where are the 
giant waterwheels and generators. We prowl around in 
vast subterranean chambers and gaze at one of the sixty- 
thousand-horse-power generators. There is no visible mo¬ 
tion and almost no sound, yet it is producing enough power 
to move at high speed a procession of two thousand motor 
cars, or to drive two Majesties or Leviathans across the 
ocean. 

The generators are of the vertical type. They are 
mounted above the waterwheels, each nine feet in diam¬ 
eter, which keep them turning at the highest permissible 
speed. The wheels are encased in steel, and we can see 
nothing but their outer shell. A muffled roar is the only 
sign of the mighty force they are creating. It is difficult to 
realize that such tremendous energy can be completely 
tamed and working in harness, and we shiver as we wonder 
what would happen if one of these mechanical Titans 
should suddenly break loose. 

Each generator is a huge affair, as tall as a four-story 
house, and a rope eighty feet long would hardly reach 
around it. Its largest portion weighs more than three 
hundred tons. It reminds us somewhat of a merry-go- 
round, only in this case the whirling portion is all inside, 
and turning so fast that it seems to be standing still. It is 
so big that it would take thirty men, standing close to- 
116 


NIAGARA’S GIANT POWER STATION 


gether, to encircle it, and it is making one hundred and 
eighty-seven and one half revolutions a minute. We look 
through a little window in the bearing case and see a mini¬ 
ature lake of two hundred gallons of frothing oil that fur¬ 
nishes lubrication. So much heat is developed in the 
operation of the generator that cold air must be fed to it. 
In warm weather, it requires thirteen hundred and eighty 
thousand pounds of air every two hours and a half, or 
exactly as much as the total weight of the generator itself. 
In winter the air warmed by the generators is utilized for 
heating the power station. 

On the trip down to Niagara Falls from Toronto I had 
an opportunity to see something of what cheap power has 
done for southwestern Ontario. I passed through Hamil¬ 
ton, a place of more than one hundred thousand inhabi¬ 
tants, with plants operated by Niagara. Here are a large 
number of American branch factories using electric current 
that costs them less than fifteen dollars per horse-power 
per year. As in London, Windsor, Brantford, Kitchener, 
and other towns, the manufacturing establishments of 
Hamilton are increasing in number and size, and the people 
say that one of the chief reasons for their prosperity is the 
“Hydro” power system. In riding over the country I 
was struck with the well-cultivated farms and the attrac¬ 
tive homes. I passed through the heart of the Niagara 
fruit district, which yields rich crops of grapes, apples, 
peaches, and other fruits. Most of the farmers now have 
electricity to help them with their outdoor work and lighten 
the labours of their wives as well. 

One of the engineers I talked with has given me a new 
appreciation of what development of water-power means 
to Canada. He tells me that each thousand horse-power 
117 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


developed brings an ultimate investment of eighteen hun¬ 
dred and sixty thousand dollars, which provides work for 
twenty-two hundred persons and pays them wages amount¬ 
ing to five hundred seventy-one thousand dollars a year. 
The cost of building and operating the power station itself 
represents only thirteen per cent, of all this; it is the appli¬ 
cation of the new energy in shops, mines, and mills that is 
responsible for the bulk of the investment. A new power 
development attracts industries; these in turn attract work¬ 
ers and their families; the latter bring in their train the 
tradesmen and the professional people needed to serve them. 
In this way new towns come into being, and old ones start 
to grow. Water-power is sometimes called “white coal.” 
It should be called “white magic.” 



Canada is one of the richest countries in the world in its water-power. 
Engineers calculate that every thousand electric horse-power developed 
from her waterfalls eventually provides employment for more than two 
thousand people. 





Since their discovery in 1903, the Cobalt mines have yielded silver 
bullion worth more than $200,000,000. These huge piles of tailings 
were formerly thrown away as waste. They are now being worked over 
again at a profit. 






CHAPTER XVI 


THE SILVER MINES OF NORTHERN ONTARIO 

^ | WKE up your map of North America and draw a 
I line from Buffalo to the lowest part of Hudson Bay. 
Divide it in half, and the middle point will just 
about strike Cobalt, the centre of the world's rich¬ 
est silver deposits. I have come here via North Bay from 
Toronto, more than three hundred miles to the south, and 
am now clicking my typewriter over ground that has pro¬ 
duced upward of one million dollars an acre in silver¬ 
bearing ore. For a long time it has turned out a ton of 
silver bullion every twenty-four hours. $ 

There are said to be only two real silver-mining districts 
in the world. One is at Guanajuato, Mexico, where the 
veins are of enormous extent but yield a low grade of ore. 
The other is here at Cobalt, where the deposits, though 
comparatively small, are almost pure silver. In practi¬ 
cally all the other great silver districts the metal is a by¬ 
product. The Anaconda mine in Montana and the Coeur 
d'Alene in Idaho are both famous silver producers, but in 
the former it is a by-product of copper, and in the latter, 
of lead. 

Twenty years ago, when I visited Cobalt shortly after 
the discovery of its underground wealth, I rode all day on 
the Ontario government railway through woods as wild as 
any on the North American continent. The road wound 
its way in and out among lakes, sloughs, and swamps. 

119 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


The country was covered with pine and hardwood, and so 
cut up by water that one could have gone almost all over 
it in a canoe. Even along the railroad it was so swampy 
and boggy that the telegraph poles had to be propped up. 
Outside the swamps it was so rocky that deep holes could 
not be made, and in such places great piles of rock were 
built up about the poles to support them. 

Some of the country was covered with bogs known as 
muskeg. This is a bottomless swamp under a thin coat¬ 
ing of vegetation, through which one sinks down as though 
in a quicksand, and, if not speedily rescued, is liable to 
drown. Hunters in travelling over it have to jump from 
root to root, making their way by means of the trees that 
grow here and there. There is said to be still much of 
this muskeg in the region of Hudson Bay and almost 
everywhere throughout this northland. Much of it has 
been drained, leaving a land somewhat like that of north¬ 
western Ohio, which was once known as the Black Swamp. 

Reaching Cobalt, I had to rely on the miners for living 
accommodations. Log cabins and frame buildings were 
going up in every direction and a three-story hotel was 
being started, but many of the people were still living in 
tents or in shacks covered with tar felt. Even the banks 
hastily established to take care of the rapidly growing 
wealth of the settlement were in tents, and the bankers 
slept at night beside their safes with a gun always within 
reach. Streets were yet to be built, and the wooden and 
canvas structures of the town straggled along roads wind¬ 
ing this way and that through the stumps. In the centre 
of the settlement was a beautiful little lake that one could 
cross in a canoe in a few minutes, and the mining properties 
extended back into the woods in every direction. 


120 


SILVER MINES, NORTHERN ONTARIO 


To-day, although still possessing many of the character¬ 
istics of the typical mining camp, Cobalt is a busy little 
city of six or seven thousand inhabitants. The tar shacks 
and tents have been replaced by modern buildings—banks, 
churches, stores, and homes—many of them erected since 
the big fire in 1912. There are good schools, including a 
school of mines, and the muddy roads have long since 
given way to sidewalks and streets. Even the lake has 
gone, its waters having been pumped away to allow min¬ 
ing operations, and where it once rippled peacefully some 
of the richest veins in the district are now being worked. 
Kerr Lake, a short distance from the town, has also been 
drained to allow safer underground workings. The place 
reminds one of the mines of the Bay of Nagasaki, Japan, 
where coal has been taken out of fifty miles of tunnels 
under the Pacific Ocean. I have visited those tunnels, 
and have also ridden by electric car through the coal mines 
under the ocean off the coast of south Chile. 

The discovery of silver at Cobalt marked the first find¬ 
ing in the Dominion of any precious metal in important 
quantities between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky 
Mountains. Two railway contractors, employed in the 
building of the line northward from the town of North Bay, 
were idly tossing pebbles into the lake when they found 
some that they believed to be lead. An analysis showed 
almost pure silver. Shortly afterward a French black¬ 
smith named La Rose stubbed his toe upon a piece of rock 
where the railway route had been blasted out, and upon 
picking it up saw the white metal shining out of the blue 
stone. He conferred with his friends and sent it down to 
Toronto to be assayed. The report was that it was very 
rich in silver. La Rose thereupon filed a mining claim, 
121 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


selling the first half of his property to the Timmins corpo¬ 
ration for five hundred dollars. Later he disposed of the 
balance to the same parties, receiving for it twenty-seven 
thousand dollars, which seemed a fortune to him. It was 
also a fortune to the purchasers, who took out more than 
a million dollars' worth of pure silver. 

Owing to the general tendency of the people to doubt 
the existence of precious metals in large quantities in 
Ontario, and the efforts of those who had made the 
“strike" to keep their discoveries secret, it was more 
than two years before excitement over the find reached 
a climax, and work on a large scale was begun. Since then 
these mines have produced nearly fourteen thousand tons 
of silver bullion, worth more than two hundred million 
dollars. Think what this means! Loaded into cars of 
thirty-five tons, the total output would fill sixteen trains 
of twenty-five cars to the train! Made into ten-cent 
pieces and laid side by side, it would make a band of solid 
silver twice around the world at the Equator! Manu¬ 
factured into teaspoons, it would furnish one for every 
person in the United States, England, and France, with 
many to spare! 

The height of the silver production at Cobalt was 
reached in 1911, when thirty-one million ounces of the 
metal was refined. Since then the yield has declined, 
but mining engineers say that the district will produce 
silver in commercial quantities for another half century. 
Eight mines are still each shipping a quarter million ounces 
or more of silver a year, and one of them, the Nipissing, is 
producing annually an average of four million ounces. Its 
huge mills, where the ore is crushed and the silver taken 
out, can be seen across the lake bed from the railway 
122 


SILVER MINES, NORTHERN ONTARIO 

station, with gigantic overhead conveyors carrying the 
rock from the mine to the mill. Silver is now being ex¬ 
tracted in paying quantities from what was once con¬ 
sidered waste ore, and the tailings previously dumped into 
the lakes have been treated in the mills, yielding a net 
profit of three dollars' worth of silver a ton. In the mean¬ 
time, the original three-mile radius of the silver-producing 
area has been extended twenty miles to the southeast and 
sixty miles to the northwest. 

The entire Cobalt region seems to be one vast rock 
covered with a thin skin of earth. I have visited the 
chief silver regions of the world, but nowhere have I seen 
the metal cropping out on top of the ground as it does here 
at Cobalt. The veins run for hundreds of feet across the 
country, and often show up on the surface. I saw one 
mine where the earth had been stripped off to the width 
of a narrow pavement for a distance of a thousand feet. 
The rock underneath, which had been ground smooth by 
glaciers, looked when cleaned much like a flagged sidewalk. 
Winding through it was a vein of almost pure silver, so 
rich that I could see the metal shine as though the rock 
were plated. I walked over this silver street for hundreds 
of feet, scouring the precious metal with my shoes as I did 
so. These veins are not regular in width nor do they run 
evenly throughout. Here and there branches jut out from 
the main one like the veins of a leaf, and the ore has every¬ 
where penetrated into the adjoining rocks. 

For a long time the work here was more like stone 
quarrying than mining. The country about is cut up by 
long trenches from ten to twenty feet deep and five or more 
feet in width, which have been blasted out of the rock to 
get the ore. The sides of the hills are now quarried where 
123 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


the silver breaks out, and the veins are followed down into 
the ground for long distances. One mining company has 
sunk a shaft to a depth of four hundred and fifty feet, and 
has excavated about thirty-seven miles of tunnels. So 
far, no one knows how deep the veins go. The geologists 
say that the silver will lessen in extent as it descends, and 
it is claimed that this has been the case with many of the 
mines. 

The discovery in 1923 of the largest silver nugget ever 
found renewed interest in the Cobalt deposits, and has led 
to the reopening of several old mines with profitable re¬ 
sults. This gigantic find, which tipped the scales at more 
than two thousand pounds, was about ninety per cent, pure 
silver, and was valued at twenty thousand dollars. The dis¬ 
covery was made by Anson Clement, a carpenter, in the 
Gillies Timber Limit about five miles from Cobalt, and a 
team of horses with a block and tackle was needed to haul 
the giant nugget out of the ground. Nuggets of silver 
eighty and ninety per cent, pure and weighing three and 
four hundred pounds each are not uncommon, and I have 
seen chunks of silver ore the size of a paving brick that I 
could not lift. Indeed, much of the ore reminds one of the 
rich copper nuggets that are found in the Lake Superior 
region. Recently a vein of almost pure silver, which in one 
place was between four and five feet in width, was uncov¬ 
ered in the Keeley Mine, eighteen miles from Cobalt. 

Before the discovery of the Cobalt deposits, British 
Columbia led in the production of silver in Canada, and 
still has an output about one third that of Ontario. Silver 
is mined also in Quebec and Yukon Territory, a new silver 
district of promise having been discovered at Keno Hill in 
the Yukon. Three thousand tons of ore has been taken 
124 


SILVER MINES, NORTHERN ONTARIO 

from one of the Keno Hill mines in one season. This has 
to be carried on dog sleds and wagons forty-five miles to 
the Stewart River and then sent down the Stewart and the 
Yukon to the Pacific, where it goes by ocean steamer to the 
nearest smelter. Only an unusually high grade of ore can 
be handled profitably with so long a freight haul before 
smelting. 

The Cobalt mines produce not only silver, but also four 
fifths of the world's supply of cobalt. Cobalt and silver 
are frequently found together, but nowhere in such quanti¬ 
ties as here. Cobalt is a mineral somewhat like nickel in 
its properties, and is also used instead of nickel for plating 
steel. It is used to make paints and pigments, and is 
often known commercially as cobalt blue. Silicate of 
cobalt furnishes the colour for all the finest blue china. 
Practically the entire Canadian output, most of which is 
smelted at plants in southern Ontario, is exported to 
England and the United States. 

The cobalt can be plainly seen in the ore when the rock 
is exposed to the weather. It is of a steel-gray colour 
tinged with rose-pink, and where it occurs in the form of a 
powder it looks exactly like rouge. When heated it turns 
a beautiful blue. Arsenic and other elements are often 
found mixed with the cobalt-silver ore, and the region has 
deposits of nickel, copper, and lead. 

A hundred miles to the north of Cobalt is the Porcupine 
gold district. The gold output ranks first in value among 
the metals produced in Canada, and four fifths of all 
that is mined in the Dominion comes from the Porcupine 
and Kirkland Lake districts of Northern Ontario. The 
Hollinger mine in the Porcupine area is the largest gold 
mine in North America and one of the richest in the world. 


125 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


It began operations in 1910, and within ten years after it 
was opened had produced almost a hundred million dollars’ 
worth of gold, and had paid dividends of thirteen millions. 
The Hollinger shaft goes down into the earth fifteen hun¬ 
dred feet or more and there are about thirty miles of under¬ 
ground tunnels. 

There is no telling what minerals may not be discovered 
in this section of Ontario, which seems to be a part of the 
great mineral belt that extends from Lake Superior north¬ 
ward toward Hudson Bay. There is iron on the Canadian 
side of Lake Superior, and some of our richest mines of 
iron and copper are found on the western and southern 
shores of that lake. Petroleum, natural gas, and salt are 
produced in the peninsular region of the province between 
lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario to the amount of more than 
three million dollars’ worth a year. About a hundred 
miles from Cobalt lies Sudbury, which has the richest 
nickel deposits of the whole world, and prospectors say 
that there are minerals all the way north to James Bay, 
which juts down into Canada at the lower end of Hudson 
Bay. 


126 



The silver deposits around Cobalt crop out on top of the ground in 
veins of almost pure metal hundreds of feet long. Millions of dollars’ 
worth have been mined without any underground workings. 




The prospector in northern Ontario, the richest mineral region in 
Canada, safeguards his claim by erecting “discovery posts” bearing his 
name, number of his mining license, and date of his find. 






CHAPTER XVII 


NICKEL FOR ALL THE WORLD 

C ANADA has a nickel mine out of which has 
been taken so much ore that if it were put all 
together the pile would be larger than the 
National Capital at Washington. About ten 
million tons have already been dug from it and there are 
still millions left. Indeed, it is apparently inexhaustible. 
It is known as the Creighton, and is situated about eight 
miles from Sudbury in the province of Ontario not far 
north of Georgian Bay. The International Nickel Com¬ 
pany of Canada, Ltd., which owns it, is the largest nickel 
producer in the world, and supplies most of that metal used 
in the United States. 

There are only two places so far discovered where nickel 
exists in large quantities. One is in the little island of New 
Caledonia off the eastern shore of Australia on the opposite 
side of the globe. About ten per cent, of the total world pro¬ 
duction comes from there. The other is here in Canada, in 
a region that yields eight times as much as New Caledonia. 
A small amount of nickel is obtained also by the electro¬ 
lytic method in the refining of copper and other ores. 

The ore near Sudbury is a combination of nickel, copper, 
sulphur, and iron. It is found in mighty beds or pockets 
going down no one knows how deep. On one side of the 
deposit is granite and on the other a black formation 
known as diorite. 


127 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


At first the ore was quarried rather than mined, and a 
huge pit was formed that looks like a volcanic crater. 
It reminds me of the Bromo volcano, which I visited in the 
mountains of eastern Java. Later a shaft was sunk, and 
the vast body of nickel I have mentioned has been taken 
out by running tunnels into the ore at different levels. 
The lowest level of the shaft is now fourteen hundred feet 
below the earth’s surface. There hundreds of workmen 
are drilling and blasting. They load the ore on cars, 
which carry it to an underground storage chamber, where 
the large pieces are crushed. It is then hoisted to the top 
of the shaft house, a structure as high as a fourteen-story 
building. After descending through rock crushers and 
screens, it is ready for smelting. 

Through the kindness of one of the officials of the In¬ 
ternational Nickel Company, I have been able to go 
through its smelters at Copper Cliff, which cover many 
acres. The country about is as arid as the desert of 
Sahara. Before the mines were discovered, it was a green 
forest and one may still see here and there charred stumps 
standing out upon the barren landscape. In the town it¬ 
self there is not a green leaf, a blade of grass, a bush, or a 
flower to be seen at any time of the year. It makes me 
think of the nitrate fields about Iquique in northern Chile, 
where all is sand and rock and there is no fresh water for 
hundreds of miles. All this is due to the sulphur that 
comes from the ore. It so fills the air about Copper Cliff 
that no vegetation will grow. 

After being crushed and screened the ore is roasted. 
Hundreds of tons of it are piled upon beds of cord wood 
and the fine ore dust is spread over the top. A fire is 
started and burns day after day for a period of two months 
128 


NICKEL FOR ALL THE WORLD 


or more. This drives out fifteen or twenty per cent, of the 
sulphur, which rises in a smoke of a light yellow colour. The 
smoke is almost pure sulphur. It smells like burnt matches 
and it fills the air about the furnace to such an extent that 
the men use rubber nose caps to protect their lungs from 
the fumes. These caps are for all the world like the nip¬ 
ples on babies’ nursing bottles, save that they are as big 
as your fist, and each has a sponge inside it soaked with 
carbonate of ammonia. This counteracts the effect of the 
sulphur and makes it possible for the men to work. I had 
one of these nipples over my nose when I went through 
the works, but nevertheless my lungs became filled with 
sulphur. I coughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks, 
and as I did so I thought if some of our preachers could get 
such a taste of brimstone their word pictures of the lower 
regions would be more realistic. 

One might suppose that the miners would be injured by 
these sulphur fumes. They are, on the contrary, as 
healthy as any people in the world. The children have 
rosy cheeks and the men are more rugged in appearance 
than those about Pittsburgh, or Anaconda, Montana. 

Even after the roasting there is still about seven per cent, 
of sulphur left. Most of this is removed in the smelting, 
which reduces the ore to a crude metal known as matte. 
Matte is the form in which the nickel is sent to the re¬ 
fineries. 

Formerly most of the refining was done in the United 
States or Europe, but during the World War the Inter¬ 
national Nickel Company built a refinery at Port Colborne, 
Ontario, and most of the Sudbury ore is now refined there. 
A large quantity goes also to Huntington, West Virginia, 
for making what is known as monel metal, an alloy of 
129 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


nickel and copper that possesses great strength, does not 
corrode easily, and is impervious to electrical currents. 
It is used in hotel kitchen equipment, in dyeing and 
pickling vats, and in many kinds of electrical apparatus. 

The mineral deposits of Sudbury were discovered by the 
Canadian Pacific Railway, which was responsible also for 
the finding of silver at Cobalt. However, no attention was 
paid to the nickel in the ore, which for years was con¬ 
sidered valuable only for the copper it contained. Part 
of the ore was sent to New Jersey for smelting and refining, 
and part to Wales. The reduction works at New Jersey 
looked upon the nickel as of no account and let it run off 
with the slag, while the Wales smelters paid only for the 
copper and kept the nickel as a private rake-off. Later the 
mine owners discovered that the nickel was far more valu¬ 
able than the copper, and since then nickel has been the 
principal source of profit. 

Although the largest, the Creighton is by no means the 
only nickel mine here. The British American Nickel 
Company owns and operates the Murray mine, where 
nickel was first found in Canada. It formerly belonged 
to the Vivians of Wales. This company has a large smelt¬ 
ing plant at Nickelton, not far from Sudbury, and a 
refinery at Deschennes, near Ottawa. A half dozen 
mines are owned by the Mond Nickel Company, which 
ships practically all its matte to Clydach, Wales, for re¬ 
fining. The copper in this matte is recovered as copper 
sulphate, which is exported largely to Italy and other 
grape-growing countries for spraying the vines. The 
matte exported by the Mond Company is shipped in 
oaken casks, which are refilled in Wales with the copper 
sulphate and sent to Italy. The Italian peasants insist 
130 


NICKEL FOR ALL THE WORLD 

on the chemical being received in such containers, not only 
to keep the sulphate crystals unbroken, but also because 
after emptying, they saw the casks in two and use them as 
washtubs. 

The production of nickel reached its height in 1918, 
when five thousand tons of ore a day were mined. This 
was due to the many uses of the metal in the World War. 
After the Armistice, the nickel market was so over-stocked 
that a severe slump in prices occurred, and the nickel pro¬ 
duction fell from forty-six thousand tons in 1918 to eight 
thousand tons in 1922. There were large quantities of the 
metal in all the belligerent countries, and these had to be 
absorbed before the Canadian industry could return to 
normal. The end of 1922 found a more active demand, 
and this was followed by an increase in production and 
sales. 

During my stay at Copper Cliff I have had a talk about 
nickel and its uses with one of the metallurgists of the 
International Nickel Company. This man has been work¬ 
ing successfully in nickel for thirty years or more, and 
he knows as much about the metal, perhaps, as any one 
in the country. Among the first discoverers of nickel, 
says he, were the German miners of old, who found this 
metal in their copper ore. Its hardness and the difficulty 
they experienced in smelting it led them to associate it 
with “Old Nick”—hence its name. This hardness is one 
of the most valuable characteristics in its present-day uses. 

“Most of the nickel goes into nickel-steel,” said the 
metallurgist, “although it enters also into many other 
manufactures. The value of nickel-steel is due to the fact 
that it combines exceeding toughness with great strength. 
Copper wire has great toughness. A steel needle or pen- 

131 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


knife has great strength. But it is only nickel-steel that 
has both toughness and strength. This makes it the best 
metal we know for armour plate. A battleship with a hull 
covered with steel or iron would be shattered to pieces if it 
were hit by one of the modern shells. If the armour plate 
is made of nickel-steel, the largest projectile makes only a 
dimple, such as you would in a pat of butter by sticking 
your finger into it. This property of toughness is added 
to the steel by putting in three and one half per cent, of 
nickel during the process of manufacturing. All the big 
warships of to-day have a belt of nickel-steel armour plate 
about eighteen inches thick. Nickel is also alloyed with 
copper for making army field kitchens and bullet casings/’ 

Nickel-steel rails are used largely where there are 
curves at the bottom of steep grades. When a heavily 
loaded freight train strikes such a curve, the only things 
that hold it on the track are the flanges of the wheels 
and the heads of the rails. In winter the rails are apt to 
become brittle, and when a heavy train, rushing down 
hill, strikes them they sometimes break and there is a 
wreck. The Horseshoe Curve of the Pennsylvania Rail¬ 
road, for instance, is made of nickel-steel rails. 

The metal is employed also in bridge building. It is 
going into many of our large apartment houses and other 
tall buildings. It is fifty per cent, stronger than ordinary 
steel and the result is that less metal can be used, or with an 
equal weight the building can have double the strength. 
Nickel-steel does not expand or contract as much as com¬ 
mon steel, and for this reason it is made into clock pendu¬ 
lums, which must be of the same length the year round in 
order to keep the right time. As nickel does not rust in 
air or water, and resists the action of many acids, it is 
132 


NICKEL FOR ALL THE WORLD 


much used in plating other metals. It is in demand for 
cooking utensils, household articles, and plumbing equip¬ 
ment, as well as for automobile parts. Practically all the 
nickel contained in our five-cent pieces is from the Cana¬ 
dian mines. They are only one quarter nickel, however, 
the remainder being copper. Indeed, there is but a frac¬ 
tion of a cent’s worth of nickel in a five-cent piece. A 
few countries, however, use pure nickel for their coinage. 

Do you know that nickel-steel and meteorites have 
practically the same composition? Indeed, the process for 
making nickel-steel was suggested by a meteor found in 
Greenland. This meteor was an immense mass that had 
fallen from the skies ages ago and was venerated by the 
Greenlanders as a god. The natives were wont to ham¬ 
mer splinters from it and make them into spear heads 
and hammer heads, accompanying their work by prayers 
to the god. Explorers found that such spear heads were 
harder and finer than any others. An Englishman named 
Riley heard of these discoveries, and they gave him the 
idea that ended in the new metal. 


133 


CHAPTER XVIII 


SAULT STE. MARIE AND THE CLAY BELT 

I AM at the “Soo,” where Lake Superior, the world’s 
largest body of fresh water, has been harnessed and is 
being made to work with a force of sixty thousand 
horses all pulling at once. The St. Mary’s River, 
through which Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron, 
has a fall of about twenty-two feet in one mile, and power 
plants have been installed which are generating electricity 
for industries on both the American and Canadian sides 
of the river. 

A large number of the industrial plants here belong to 
Americans. The main buildings of these works look like 
mediaeval castles rather than modern factories. They are 
equal in beauty to any of the ruins of the Rhine or the 
Danube. Indeed, they remind me of the mighty forts of 
Delhi, the capital of India. They are made of a rich red 
and white sandstone, with crenellated walls, and, not¬ 
withstanding their beauty, are said to have been built at 
a remarkably low cost. The blocks of sandstone were 
taken out of the canal dug for the power plant. 

It is interesting to go through these factories and see 
the work of Lake Superior in harness. In the pulp mills, 
where more than a hundred huge truck loads of news-print 
are turned out every day, I saw the logs ground to dust, 
mixed with water, and made into miles of paper to feed 
printing presses. The output is so great that every three 
134 



The “Soo” Canal not only has the heaviest freight traffic of any artificial 
waterway in the world, but is also on the route of the passenger steamers 
that carry thousands of tourists through the Great Lakes. 



The longest bascule bridge in the world is operated by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway at Sault Ste. Marie. Each section is 169 feet long, and is 
raised by electric power to permit vessels to pass through the canal. 














The moose in the thick forests of Canada feed off the trees and smaller 
shrubs. The moose have such short necks and long front legs that they 
cannot browse on grass without getting down on their knees. 



Ontario has so many lakes that canoes can be paddled for hundreds 
of miles with practically no portages. Since the days of the French ex¬ 
plorers, these lakes have formed part of the water route from the East 
to Hudson Bay. 







SAULT STE. MARIE 


months enough paper is made to cover a sidewalk reaching 
all the way round the world. 

In the saw-mills millions of feet of lumber are being cut 
into boards for the markets of the United States, and in the 
veneering works birch logs as big around as a flour barrel 
are made into sheets, some as thin as your fingernail, and 
others as thick as the board cover of a family Bible. Here 
we see that the logs are soaked in boiling water and then 
pared, just as you would pare an apple, into strips of wood 
carpeting perhaps a hundred feet long. These strips are 
used for the backing of mahogany and quartered oak 
sent here from Grand Rapids and other places where 
furniture is made. One often thinks he is getting solid 
mahogany or solid oak, whereas he has only the knottiest 
of pine or other rough wood on which is placed a strip of 
birch, with a veneer of mahogany or oak on top. The 
thick birch strips are used also for chair and opera seats. 

Near the saw-mills is the Clergue steel plant, with its 
smoke stacks standing out against the blue sky like the 
pipes of a gigantic organ. The works cover acres and 
turn out thousands of tons of metal products every day. 
They are supplied by the mountains of iron ore lying on 
the shores of Lake Superior not far away, with great steel 
unloaders reaching out above them. 

Sault Ste. Marie is one of the oldest settlements in the 
Dominion of Canada. Here in 1668, Father Marquette 
established the first Jesuit mission in the New World, and 
the priests who followed him were the first white men to 
travel from lower Canada to the head of the Great Lakes, 
where now stand Port Arthur and Fort William. The 
town of to-day is a bustling place of almost twenty-five 
thousand population. It is connected with its American 
135 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


namesake on the opposite bank of the river by a mile-long 
bridge of the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

On both sides of the Saint Mary’s River are the locks 
of the famous “Soo” Canal, where the Great Lakes 
freighters and passenger boats are lowered and raised 
twenty feet between the levels of Lakes Superior and 
Huron. The first canal was built around the rapids in 
1798, to accommodate the canoes of the Indians and fur 
traders. Along it ran a tow-path for the oxen that later 
pulled the heavier loads. That canal was destroyed by 
the United States troops in the War of 1812. 

The present canal was opened in 1897, providing a new 
link in the chain of waterways from the head of the Lakes 
to the Saint Lawrence. The Canadian lock is nine hun¬ 
dred feet long and when finished was the longest in 
the world. Since then it has been surpassed by one 
eleven hundred feet in length on the American side. The 
United States locks handle about ninety per cent, of the 
freight traffic, which has so increased in the last twenty 
years that it has been necessary to add three more locks to 
the original one on our side of the river. Two of these 
locks are longer by three hundred feet than the famous 
Panama locks at Gatun or Pedro Miguel. Each is big 
enough to accommodate two ships at one time. Neverthe¬ 
less, during the open season one can often see here a score 
of steamers, some of them of from twelve to fifteen thou¬ 
sand tons, waiting to go through. 

The “Soo” is noted for having the heaviest freight 
traffic of any artificial waterway in the world. The ton¬ 
nage passing through it in one year is three times as large 
as that of the foreign trade shipping of the port of New 
York, four times as great as the freight passing through 
136 


SAULT STE. MARIE 


the Suez Canal, and five times as great as that of the 
Panama Canal. For six months of the year an average of 
more than one steamer goes through every fifteen minutes. 
The chief freight commodity is ore from the iron mines 
of Lake Superior, which often comprises seventy per cent, 
of the total. Coal and wheat are next in importance. 

In coming to the “Soo” from Cobalt and Sudbury, I 
have been travelling through the new Ontario, the “wild 
northwest” of the Ontario we know on the shores of Lakes 
Ontario, Erie, and Huron. The land near those bodies of 
water is about as thickly settled as Ohio. It has some of 
the best farms of North America, producing grain, vegeta¬ 
bles, and fruits worth millions of dollars a year. At every 
few miles are modern cities. The whole country is cut up 
by railways, and one can go by automobile through any 
part of it. The cities and town hum with factories, and 
the entire region is one of industry and thrift. 

This new Ontario is the frontier of the province. It is 
the great northland between Georgian Bay and Hudson 
Bay, extending from Quebec westward through the Rainy 
River country to Manitoba. This vast region is larger 
than Texas, four times the size of old Ontario, and 
much bigger than Great Britain or France. It is divided 
into eight great districts. The Thunder Bay and Rainy 
River districts in the west are together as long as from 
Philadelphia to Boston, and wider than from Washington 
to New York. The Algoma district, in the southern end 
of which the “Soo” is located, is almost as wide, extending 
from Lake Superior to the Albany River, while the Timis- 
kaming district reaches from Cobalt north to James Bay, 
and borders Quebec on the east. 

Until the first decade of the twentieth century this vast 

1 37 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


territory was looked upon as valuable only for its timber, 
of which it had nearly two hundred million acres. It was 
thought to be nothing but rock and swamp, covered with 
ice the greater part of the year. Its only inhabitants were 
Indian hunters, Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders, and 
lumbermen who cut the trees along the streams and 
floated them down to the Great Lakes. Then a new line of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway was put through, the great 
nickel mines were discovered, the silver and gold regions 
were opened up, and the Dominion and provincial govern¬ 
ments began to look upon the land as an available asset. 

Exploration parties were sent out by the Ontario govern¬ 
ment to investigate the region from Quebec to Manitoba. 
They reported that a wide strip of fertile soil ran through 
the wilderness about a hundred miles north of the route of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway. This land is of a different 
formation from the rest of northern Ontario. It is a clay 
loam, from which the region gets its name, the Great 
Clay Belt. This belt is from twenty-five to one hundred 
miles wide, and it extends westward from the Quebec- 
Ontario boundary for three hundred miles or more. It 
is estimated to contain as much land as West Virginia. 

The Clay Belt is just north of the height of land of the 
North American continent, which divides the rivers flowing 
north from those that flow south. The streams on the 
southern side of the ridge flow into the Great Lakes, and 
some even to the Gulf of Mexico. On the north slope they 
flow into Hudson Bay, or by the Mackenzie and other 
rivers into the Arctic Ocean. The Clay Belt has seven 
good-sized rivers and is well watered throughout. 

In midsummer the Clay Belt is as hot as southern Can¬ 
ada or the northern part of the United States. As a mat- 

>38 



If there is a moose within sound of the hunter’s birch-bark horn, he 
will think it one of his brethren calling and be so foolish as to come near 
and be shot. These animals are still plentiful in Canadian forests. 






The trout-filled streams of interior Ontario and Quebec are a Mecca for 
the fishermen of both the United States and Canada. In the tributaries 
of the St. Lawrence the fresh-water salmon also provide good sport. 






SAULT STE. MARIE 


ter of fact, Cochrane, its chief town, is fifty miles south of 
the latitude of Winnipeg. Everything grows faster than 
in the States, for owing to the high latitude the summer 
days are fifteen or sixteen hours long, the sun rising a little 
after three and setting between eight and nine. The clay 
loam is particularly fitted for growing wheat, and certain 
districts have yielded forty bushels an acre. Oats, barley, 
and hardy vegetables are raised successfully. The coun¬ 
try looks prosperous, and there are well-filled barns and 
fine herds of livestock as evidences of its productivity. 

When the first settlements were made, Northern On¬ 
tario had no railroads to market its produce. Four thou¬ 
sand miles of track have since been built, including two 
lines now a part of the Canadian National. One of these 
goes through the very centre of the Clay Belt and has 
settlements all along it. At almost every river crossing is 
a lumber mill, for Northern Ontario’s vast forest stretches 
and the water-power in its streams have made it an im¬ 
portant producer of lumber and wood pulp. The trees 
of the Clay Belt are mostly of a small growth, therefore 
chiefly valuable for pulp and easier to handle in clearing 
the land. 

Ontario has set aside thirteen million acres of forest 
reserves, nine tenths of which is in the northern part of 
the province. The Nipigon and Timagami reserves 
are each larger than Rhode Island and provide camping 
grounds unequalled in the Dominion. Lake Timagami is 
dotted with hundreds of islands and is a favourite haunt 
of canoeists. Farther west, near the Manitoba boundary, 
the beautiful Lake of the Woods is another famous camp¬ 
ing and hunting district. 

Immense herds of caribou roam through Northern 
139 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Ontario. They are to be seen in droves of hundreds and 
sometimes of thousands. They have cut their trails across 
the country, and a hunter to whom I have been talking 
tells me that from his camp at night he can often hear the 
rushing noise they make as they move through the woods. 

In the forests farther south moose are found in great 
numbers. These animals are browsers rather than grass 
eaters, their necks being so short that they have to get 
down on their knees when they eat grass. Deer and 
smaller animals also abound, wild ducks and geese are 
plentiful, and the streams are filled with fish. Indeed, it 
is little wonder that each year sees thousands of campers 
making their way to this “sportsman’s paradise.” 


140 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE TWIN LAKE PORTS 

I AM at the nozzle of the mighty grain funnel down 
which Canada’s wheat crop is pouring into the boats 
of Lake Superior. The prairie provinces of the Do¬ 
minion produce in one year almost a half billion bush¬ 
els of wheat, and after the harvest a steady stream of 
golden grain rolls into the huge elevators of Port Arthur 
and Fort William, its sister city, three miles away. 

These cities are on the north shore of Lake Superior, 
two or three hundred miles from Duluth, and within four 
hundred miles of Winnipeg. Port Arthur is situated on 
Thunder Bay, opposite the rocky promontory of Thunder 
Cape, and Fort William is a short distance farther inland 
at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River. Both towns 
have harbours deep enough for the largest lake steamers, 
and during eight months of the year a great caravan of 
boats is moving back and forth between here and the 
East. By the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian Na¬ 
tional railways, Port Arthur and Fort William have con¬ 
nection with every part of the wheat belt, and almost the 
entire amount of wheat exported, or about seventy per cent, 
of the total production, is brought here for storage and 
transportation. 

The two cities are so full of the spirit of the breezy 
West that one feels it in the air. The region is in step 
141 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


with twentieth-century progress. The people look at the 
future through the right end of the telescope, and most of 
them have microscopes in front of the lenses. Everyone 
is building air castles—not in Spain, but upon Lake Supe¬ 
rior—and although he acknowledges that he has not yet 
got far beyond the foundations, he can in his mind’s eye 
see cities far surpassing those of the present. 

Speaking of the enthusiasm of the Port Arthurites— 
the night I arrived I walked up the street and entered a 
stationery store. While making a purchase I happened to 
remark that the town was beautifully located. 

“ It is,” said the clerk, ‘‘and if you will come with me I 
will show you one of the finest views in the world just 
behind this store.” 

Supposing it to be a walk of a minute or so, I con¬ 
sented. The clerk grabbed his hat and out we went. He 
tramped me two miles up the hills back of Port Arthur, 
leading me on and on through one district after another, 
until I wondered whether I was in the hands of a gold 
brick agent or some other confidence man. At last, when 
we were out among the real estate signs, he struck an 
attitude and exclaimed: 

“ Behold Port Arthur.” 

It was moonlight and I could see the ghost-like build¬ 
ings scattered over the hills, while down on the shore of 
the lake was the skyline of the business section with the 
mighty elevators on the edge of the water beyond. It 
was a fine moonlight view of Thunder Bay, but being 
tired out after my trip from the “Soo,” I was not enthu¬ 
siastic. 

Fort William and Port Arthur are rivals. Port Arthur 
was built first. Formerly the site of an Indian village, it 
142 



The government-owned wheat elevator at Port Arthur is the world’s 
largest grain 1 storage plant. The greater part of all the wheat grown on 
the western prairies comes to this city or to Fort William for shipment 
down the lakes. 





The beautiful falls of Kakabeka are almost as high as those of Nia¬ 
gara. They generate hydro-electric power that is carried to Fort 
William, twenty-three miles away, to light the city and run its factories. 



“The lake freighters are like no other craft I have ever seen. Between 
the bow and the stern is a vast stretch of deck, containing hatches into 
which wheat or ore is loaded. This boat is six hundred feet long.” 










THE TWIN LAKE PORTS 

was founded by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Shortly 
after its birth the baby town decided to tax that great 
corporation. This made the railway people angry, and it 
is said that the then president of the line decided to dis¬ 
cipline the infant by moving his lake terminus to Fort 
William, which was then a Hudson’s Bay Company trad¬ 
ing post. He thereupon shifted the railway shops to Fort 
William, saying that he would yet see the grass grow in the 
streets of Port Arthur. For a time the grass did grow, 
but later the Canadian Northern road, now a part of the 
Canadian National, was built through, and Port Arthur 
now has traffic from both roads. Most of the business of 
the Canadian Pacific is still done at Fort William. 

Fort William and Port Arthur are connected by a street¬ 
car line and the land between them has been so divided 
into town lots that they may some day unite the two 
cities. Both places believe in municipal ownership, 
and each manages its own electric lights, telephones, and 
waterworks. Fort William is the larger, Port Arthur 
having four or five thousand less people. 

During my stay here 1 have gone through some of the 
wheat elevators. Fort William has twenty-two and 
Port Arthur ten, with a total storage capacity between 
them of fifty-six million bushels. Plans are under way 
to make this enormous capacity even greater. The ter¬ 
minal elevator of the Canadian National Railways, built 
on the very edge of Lake Superior, is the largest in the 
world. It consists of two huge barn-like divisions between 
which are more than one hundred and fifty herculean grain 
tanks. These are mighty cylinders of tiles bound together 
with steel, each of which is twenty-one feet in diameter 
and will hold twenty-three thousand bushels of wheat. 
M 3 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


This great tank forest covers several acres, and rises to the 
height of an eight-story apartment house. 

The storage capacity of the elevator is eight million 
bushels of wheat, which is more than enough to supply a 
city the size of Detroit with flour the year round. The 
elevator can unload six hundred cars of wheat, or about 
six hundred thousand bushels, in a single day, including 
the weighing and binning. It has scales that weigh forty- 
three tons at a time. 

The wheat comes to the elevator in cars, each of which 
holds a thousand or fifteen hundred bushels. By a car¬ 
dumping machine the grain is unloaded into the base¬ 
ment of the huge buildings at the sides of the tanks. From 
there it is raised to the top of the elevator in bushel buckets 
on endless chains at the rate of six hundred and fifty 
bushels a minute, or more than ten every second. It is 
next weighed, and then carried on wide belt conveyors 
into the storage towers. The machinery is so arranged 
that by pressing a button or moving a lever a stream of 
wheat will flow to any part of the great granary. The 
grain runs just like water, save that the belts conduct it 
uphill or down. 

When ready to be transferred to a steamer, the wheat 
is drawn from the bottom of a bin, again elevated to the 
top of the building, weighed, and then poured into the ves¬ 
sel through spouts. It is not touched by hand from the 
time it leaves the car until it is taken from the hold of the 
ship, and the work is done so cheaply that it costs only a 
fraction of a cent to transfer a bushel of wheat from the 
car to the boats. For ten or eleven cents a bushel it can 
be carried a thousand miles or more down the lakes and put 
into the hold of an ocean steamer that takes it to Europe. 

144 


THE TWIN LAKE PORTS 


In one of the elevators of the Canadian Pacific Railway 
at Fort William a train of wheat is handled every twenty 
minutes during the season. I timed the workers as they 
unloaded one car. It contained sixteen hundred bushels 
of wheat, or enough, at twenty-five bushels an acre, to 
equal the crop of a sixty-four acre farm. Nevertheless, 
it was elevated, weighed, and put in the tanks within less 
than eight minutes. 

The open navigation season on the Great Lakes lasts 
from May to December, and during this time as much as 
five million bushels of wheat a day have been put on 
freight boats at Fort William or Port Arthur for trans¬ 
shipment to the East. Some of the freighters unload their 
cargoes at Georgian Bay ports, on the east side of Lake 
Huron, from where the wheat goes by rail to Montreal. 
Other ships discharge at Port Colborne, Ontario, from 
where the grain is carried on barges through the Welland 
Canal and thence down the St. Lawrence and its canals 
to Montreal. Still other shipments go through United 
States ports. A few small steamers take their cargoes all 
the way by water from the head of the Lakes to Montreal; 
the grain carried in this way is only between two and 
three per cent, of the total. 

The all-water route and the combined rail-and-water 
route from the head of the Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard 
are much cheaper than the all-rail route, due to high 
railway freight rates in eastern Canada. A bushel of 
wheat can be sent over the thirteen hundred miles between 
Calgary and Fort William for about fifteen cents, while 
the overland freight rate from Fort William to Quebec or 
Montreal, a distance of only a thousand miles, is twenty- 
one cents. The rate on the all-water route from Fort 


145 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


William to Montreal is ten cents cheaper, or eleven cents. 
From Fort William to New York via Buffalo it is fourteen 
cents, but vessels sailing from New York offer lower ocean 
rates and can get cheaper marine insurance, so that more 
than half of Canada’s export wheat is shipped abroad via 
the United States. 

Whenever we have put a high tariff on Canadian wheat, 
the amount exported to our country declines. We now 
admit Canadian wheat free of duty on condition that none 
shall be consumed in the United States. This does not 
mean that it may not be manufactured. At present fifty 
per cent, of all that is imported is made into flour, and then 
reexported. 

Some of the lake freighters in the Port Arthur and 
Fort William harbours are like no other craft I have seen. 
They have an elevated forecastle at the bow for the crew, 
with the engines and officers’ quarters in the stern. In 
rough weather one can pass from bow to stern only by 
means of a life rope, and orders and reports are given by 
telephone. In the stretch of deck between is a series 
of hatches, sometimes thirty or more, through which the 
cargoes are loaded or discharged. A single vessel will 
often carry three hundred thousand bushels of wheat, or 
the equivalent of six or seven trainloads of forty cars each. 
Among the boats in the lake grain trade this season were a 
number of small ocean-going freighters from Norway, at¬ 
tracted here by the cargoes available at profitable rates. 

Besides the great fleet of grain-carrying ships, passenger 
steamers run from Port Arthur and Fort William to 
Georgian Bay, touching at all the important ports on 
the route. I steamed for eighteen hours through Lake 
Superior coming here on one of the boats from the “Soo.” 

146 


THE TWIN LAKE PORTS 


That lake is so large that at times we lost sight of land 
and it seemed as though we were in mid-ocean. At other 
times we could see the irregular coastline, which is rock- 
bound and picturesque. The water of Lake Superior is as 
clear as crystal; it is icy cold the year round. 


147 


CHAPTER XX 


WINNIPEG—WHER£ THE PRAIRIES BEGIN 

S TAND with me on the top of the Union Bank 
Building, and take a look at the city of Winnipeg. 
I You had best pull your hat down over your ears 
and button your fur coat up to your neck for the 
wind is blowing a gale. The sky is bright, and the air is 
sharp and so full of ozone that we seem to be breathing 
champagne. I venture you have never felt so much alive. 

The city stretches out on all sides for miles. Office 
buildings and stores are going up, new shingle roofs shine 
brightly under the winter sun, and we can almost smell 
the paint of the suburban additions. Within fifty years 
Winnipeg has jumped from a Hudson’s Bay Company 
trading post of two hundred people to a city of more than 
two hundred thousand, and it is still growing. The value 
of the buildings erected last year amounted to more than 
half that of the new construction in Montreal. 

Now turn about and look up Portage Avenue. Twenty 
years ago that street hardly existed. To-day it has mil¬ 
lions of dollars’ worth of business blocks, any of which 
would be a credit to a city the same size in the States. 
That nine-story department store over there is the largest in 
western Canada. Farther down Main Street are the Ca¬ 
nadian Pacific hotel and railway offices, and beyond them 
the great terminals of the Canadian National Railways. 
“Yes, sir,” says the Winnipegger at my side, “you 
148 


WINNIPEG—WHERE PRAIRIES BEGIN 

can see how we have grown. It was about the beginning 
of this century that we began to build for all time and 
eternity. Before that most of our buildings were put up 
without cellars and had flimsy foundations. We had not 
realized that Winnipeg was bound to be the greatest city 
of Central Canada. 

“ Look at those wholesale houses,” he continues. “ Did 
you ever see anything like them? Most of them started 
as two- or three-story structures, but their business has 
grown so that they have had to be pushed up to six stories 
or more. Winnipeg is one of the chief markets of western 
North America. If you had a pair of long-distance glasses 
that would enable you to look from here to the Pacific you 
could find no city in western Canada that can approach 
it, and your eyes would travel as far as Toronto before 
any city of its size could be seen. 

“If it were now summer,” the Winnipegger continues, 
“your telescope would show you that you are at the east¬ 
ern end of the greatest grain-growing region on earth. 
To the west of us are six million acres of land that will grow 
wheat and other foodstuffs with little more labour than 
scratching the ground. Western Canada raised in one 
year almost a half billion bushels of wheat and almost as 
much oats, to say nothing of millions of bushels of barley, 
rye, and flax seed.” 

“Don’t you think it is a bit cold here on the roof?” I 
rather timidly manage to ask. 

“Well, perhaps so,” is the reply, “but when I talk 
about Winnipeg I grow so warm that I could stand stark 
naked on the North Pole and not feel uncomfortable.” 

Leaving the Union Bank Building, we go for a motor 
ride through the city. Main Street, the chief business 
149 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

thoroughfare, was one of the old Indian trails that followed 
the course of the Red River past the old Hudson’s Bay 
Company fort. And it still contains some of the city’s 
best commercial properties. Along it real estate has been 
rapidly rising in price and is said to be now fully as high 
as in Minneapolis or Toronto. Portage Avenue, which 
we saw from the roof, cuts Main Street almost at right an¬ 
gles. It also is part of an old Indian trail that extended 
from here a thousand miles westward to Edmonton, a city 
now reached by three great railroad lines. 

Notice the banks! Winnipeg is one of the financial 
centres of Canada, with branches of the chief banks of the 
Dominion. Now we are going toward the river, past the 
Hudson’s Bay Company stores. Turning to the right, we 
pass the Manitoba Club, the University of Manitoba, and 
the parliament buildings. Like Washington, Winnipeg is a 
city of magnificent distances. The main streets are one 
hundred and thirty-two feet wide, and they stretch on 
and on out into the country. In the residential districts 
they wind this way and that along the Assiniboine River. 
Boulevards have been laid out on both sides of the stream 
in such a way that every residence has a back yard running 
down to the water, and nearly all have gardens and trees. 
There are miles of fine houses in this part of Winnipeg. 
The chief building materials are white brick and a cream- 
coloured stone found near by. This is, in fact, a white 
city, and it looks as neat as a pin under the bright sun¬ 
shine. The boosting Winnipeggers say the sun shines 
here for thirteen months or more every year. It is true 
that of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, 
three hundred and thirty are usually cloudless. 

Leaving the boulevards, we ride through street after 
150 



Winnipeg grew within fifty years from a Hudson’s Bay post of two 
hundred people to the third largest city in the Dominion. It is the great¬ 
est grain market in Canada, all eastward-bound wheat being inspected and 
graded here. 
















Corn is cut by machinery in southern Manitoba. The land is worked 
in such large tracts that it pays to use the most modern labour-saving 
devices. 



Wheat growers on a large scale usually have their own threshing 
machines, but the small farmer must stack his grain and wait for the 
arrival of one of the threshing outfits that travel from farm to farm 
through the wheat belt. 





WINNIPEG—WHERE PRAIRIES BEGIN 


street of cottages, the homes of the well-to-do and of the 
poorer classes. We see but few signs of “To Let” or 
“ For Sale.” Winnipeg has almost no tenement buildings. 
Even the dwellings of the labourers stand in yards. No¬ 
tice the double windows used to keep out the intense cold. 

Winnipeg lies on a plain about midway between the 
Atlantic and the Pacific and sixty miles from the United 
States boundary. The city is built on the banks of the 
Assiniboine and the Red River of the North, which here 
come together. The confluence of the two rivers was the 
site of numerous Indian camps and trading posts, and the 
scene of many of the early struggles between the rival fur 
companies. Fort Garry was finally established here in 
1820 by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and a settlement 
that sprang up a half mile away was called Winnipeg, after 
the lake of the same name about fifty miles to the north. 
The word is a contraction of the Cree Indian “Ouinipi- 
gon,” meaning “muddy waters.” 

In 1870, at the time of the Red River Rebellion against 
the creation of Manitoba as a province of the Dominion 
and its occupation by the Dominion government, Winni¬ 
peg, including Fort Garry, had two hundred and forty 
inhabitants. Ten years later its population was seven 
thousand, and in another ten years, following the coming 
of the Canadian Pacific Railway, it had about thirty 
thousand people. Since then it has grown steadily, until 
it is now the third city in Canada, outranked only by 
Montreal and Toronto. It is an important industrial 
centre, manufacturing more than one hundred million 
dollars worth of goods in one year. 

Situated at the gateway of Western Canada, and the 
vast wheatfields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Al- 

1 5 1 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


berta, Winnipeg is the largest grain market not only of the 
Dominion but of the whole British Empire. It is the 
neck of the bottle, as it were, for practically the entire 
crop of the prairie provinces. Every carload of wheat 
bound eastward for Fort William or Port Arthur is opened 
here and sampled to determine its grade, a report on 
which is sent on to the elevator as soon as the car is re¬ 
closed and sealed. Hence, when the carload of wheat 
arrives at the elevator it can be binned in its proper place 
without any delay. 

Winnipeg is the distributing point for western Canada 
for immigrants and settlers. There are people here of 
almost every nationality in Christendom, and I am told 
that the Bible is circulated through a local society in fifty 
different languages and dialects. Across the Red River 
from the city is the town of St. Boniface, where live several 
thousand French Canadians whose fathers came here 
years ago. For a long time the settlement was typically 
and wholly French, but many new people have come in, 
and not long since, for the first time in its history, an 
English-speaking mayor was elected. 

Some distance from the city, on the south shore of Lake 
Winnipeg, is a colony of Icelanders. These people were 
among the first of the immigrants to western Canada. 
They were brought in by commissioners of the Dominion 
government when it was thought that none but those ac¬ 
customed to the cold of the arctic region could withstand 
the climate. A colony of several thousand was settled 
along the shores of the lake. For a time they made 
their living by fishing, much of their catch in the winter 
being taken through holes in the ice. The Icelanders 
intermarried with the Canadians, and they are now well 
152 


WINNIPEG—WHERE PRAIRIES BEGIN 


scattered over the province. Some of them are lawyers, 
others are teachers, and many of the girls have gone into 
domestic service. The largest Icelandic church in the 
world is in Winnipeg, and periodicals are published here in 
the Icelandic language. 

Winnipeg has many Mennonites and Russians. I saw 
a Russian church in my drive about the city. The Cath¬ 
olic population is large, the French Canadians belonging 
to that denomination. Outside the city are a Trappist 
monastery and a Trappist nunnery. Almost every de¬ 
nomination of Protestants has its meeting house, and 
the Jews have a synagogue. 

I like the Winnipeggers. They are strenuous, enthusi¬ 
astic, and happy. They are “ boosters,” claiming that 
their city has the best climate on earth, and that they 
would not exchange the biting winter winds of the prairie 
for the gentle zephyrs of Florida or California. Just now 
every one who can afford it wears a fur overcoat, many of 
which are made of coon skins. The fur of the coon is 
long and thick and the coat almost doubles the size of the 
wearer. It makes him look at least a foot broader. Some 
of the fur caps add six inches in height. Indeed, the 
town seems peopled with furry giants, who just now are 
breathing out steam, for the frost congeals the air from 
their nostrils so that it rises like the vapour of an in¬ 
cipient volcano. 

The women here also dress in furs. Their cheeks are 
red from Jack Frost's nipping cold, and the ozone in the 
air paints their eyes bright. When they begin to talk 
one knows at once that they are the wives and the daugh¬ 
ters of the giants beside them, for they sing the praises of 
Winnipeg as loud as the men. 

153 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Until 1912 Manitoba contained only half as much land 
as it does to-day. It was almost a perfect square and 
was known as the “Postage Stamp” province. Then 
a section of the Northwest Territories was added to it, 
and now it is as large as North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Missouri, and Indiana combined. From the Lake of 
the Woods and the Ontario boundary it extends west¬ 
ward to Saskatchewan, while from the boundary of 
North Dakota and Minnesota it stretches northward for 
a distance almost as long as from New York to Chicago. 

Although known as a prairie province, as a matter of fact, 
only five per cent, of Manitoba is rightly included under 
this designation. This is in the southern part, where the 
fertile Red River Valley grows some of the finest wheat of 
all Canada. Three fourths of the province is covered with 
forest, mostly second growth, which has sprung up since 
the great forest fires in the past swept over the country. 
In the north are also vast regions of barren land and 
muskeg, whose only value is in their game and fish. 
Near The Pas, four hundred and eighty-three miles north 
of Winnipeg, is a region of minerals, where deposits of cop¬ 
per, gold, and silver are known to exist, but where the 
developments as yet are of no great importance. 

About five hundred miles north of Winnipeg is a belt 
of clay land similar to that I have described in Ontario. 
This belt is level and well adapted to mixed farming. The 
Winnipeggers tell me that the railway built toward Hud¬ 
son Bay has done much to open that part of Manitoba 
to settlement. The climate is said to be warmer than that 
of Winnipeg, owing to the absence of windswept plains 
and the proximity of the waters of Hudson Bay, which 
have a temperature higher than those of Lake Superior. 

154 


WINNIPEG—WHERE PRAIRIES BEGIN 

Hardy grains and vegetables can be grown, and straw¬ 
berries have been raised at The Pas. 

The first charter to build a railway to Hudson Bay 
was granted as far back as 1880, and the project has been 
under discussion more or less ever since. The various 
Canadian trunk lines at different times have made plans 
for extensions to the Bay, and I am told that James J. 
Hill once owned a concession to build such a line. The 
railway from Winnipeg to The Pas on the Saskatchewan 
River was completed about 1906, and from there it was 
planned to extend it on to Hudson Bay. Actual work 
was held up a long time because of a controversy as to 
whether the northern terminus should be at Port Nelson 
or farther north at Fort Churchill. Port Nelson was 
finally decided upon in 1912 and work was resumed. 

As there were no settlements along the route, and as the 
builders had to carry with them all their supplies and 
food, the line was pushed northward a short distance at 
a time, and progress was slow. The plans included a 
harbour at Port Nelson and the erection there of two 
four-million bushel wheat elevators. However, the ships 
loaded with supplies for the new port met with disaster, 
and later it was learned that the entire appropriation for 
the railway had been spent leaving the line far from com¬ 
pletion. The project was finally abandoned in 1917, when 
three hundred and thirty-two of the four hundred and 
twenty-four miles from The Pas to Port Nelson had been 
built. An irregular service has been since maintained to Mile 
214, mostly for the accommodation of miners and hunters. 

The Hudson Bay route would bring the wheat of the 
Northwest a thousand miles nearer the ocean. Port Nel¬ 
son is as near Liverpool as is Montreal, and a carload of 
155 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


wheat from Regina in Saskatchewan could be at the Hud¬ 
son Bay port in the same time it would take to reach Fort 
William. The distance from Winnipeg to Liverpool via 
Hudson Bay is three thousand miles, whereas by Mon¬ 
treal it is 4228 miles. Passengers to England from St. 
Paul and Minneapolis by using this route would shorten 
their railroad journey by at least five or six hundred miles. 

The chief objection to the completion of the Hudson 
Bay railway is the difficulty of navigating, not the Bay 
itself, but Hudson Strait, which leads into it. The strait 
opens Out into the Atlantic a little below Greenland. It 
is between four and five hundred miles long, and from 
fifty to two hundred miles wide. From the middle of 
October until June it is sure to be full of ice from the 
Arctic Ocean, and some parts of it are usually blocked for 
a month longer. Moreover, it is not safe to rely upon it 
being open later than the first week in October. 


156 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE GREAT TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 

C AN you imagine all the railroads of the United 
States divided into two systems, paralleling each 
other from our Atlantic coast to the Pacific? 
Think of them as north of a line drawn from 
Baltimore westward through St. Louis to San Francisco. 
Let the distance between terminals be nearly four thou¬ 
sand miles, and the total length of track ten times as great. 
Finally, suppose that the larger of the two systems is 
owned and operated by Uncle Sam, and the other by such 
a corporation as the New York Central. If you can do 
that you will have the background of the railroad situa¬ 
tion in Canada to-day. 

With a mile of track for every twenty-three people, 
Canada has more railroads in proportion to her popula¬ 
tion than any other country on earth. Only the United 
States and Russia have a greater total mileage. Geo¬ 
graphically, British America extends from our northern 
border to the Arctic Ocean, but the active life of the 
Dominion is mostly confined to a strip of territory aver¬ 
aging less than five hundred miles wide from north to 
south and more than three thousand miles long. 

Our railroad development began in the East and ex¬ 
tended westward, but we have no system that reaches 
from coast to coast. Canada, on the other hand, has 
two such systems. Neither have we any such transporta- 
157 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

tion service as the Canadian Pacific, which can take a 
passenger on board ship at Liverpool, Hamburg, Cher¬ 
bourg, land him in Canada, carry him across the con¬ 
tinent and across the Pacific, and set him down in Japan 
or China, putting him up at its own hotels whenever he 
wants to stop over. 

Before the World War, the Canadian Pacific, with 
some fourteen thousand miles of its own rails, and five 
thousand more under its operation, was the world’s largest 
land and water transportation system under one manage¬ 
ment. To go over all its lines would take nearly three 
weeks of continuous travel behind a fast engine. Now 
it has been eclipsed on land by the Canadian National 
lines, with twenty-two thousand miles of track, owned and 
operated by the Dominion government. 

1 have ridden for thousands of miles over both of the 
present systems, and have made trips in Canada when 
some of the lines were in the process of building. I have 
talked with the pioneers of railroad development in the 
Dominion and the officials of the great railway organiza¬ 
tions of to-day. I have watched the wheat trains pull out 
of Winnipeg, one every half hour, all day and all night. 
Both the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific 
are doing their jobs well, and both furnish excellent 
equipment and service on their main lines. As a rule, the 
trains run at slower speed than the best expresses of the 
United States, and, excepting the Trans-Canada Limited, 
they stop at places so small that they would get only 
a shriek of the whistle from our fast railway flyers. Most 
of the lines have only a single track, but this is generally 
sufficient to handle the traffic. Both systems operate 
almost exclusively their own sleeping and dining cars. 
i 5 8 



With a population of less than two and one half persons per square 
mile, strung out across a continent nearly three thousand miles wide, 
Canada has had to make enormous investments in railroads to bind the 
country together. 





“Selling the scenery” has become a great source of revenue to Canada’s 
railroads, which are experts in exploiting the natural beauties of the Do¬ 
minion. Americans furnish the bulk of the patronage over the scenic 
routes. 



TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 

Each has also its own express service, and combined they 
have more than one hundred thousand miles of telegraph 
lines open to the use of the public. The food I have eaten 
on the dining cars here has averaged in quality above that 
served on eastern trains in the United States. The prices 
are ’about the same, though the portions, as a rule, are 
more generous. 

The managements of both of these systems make strenu¬ 
ous endeavours to cultivate the highest morale in their 
employees, and to win their cooperation in the struggle for 
efficiency. Every man in the Canadian railroad service 
understands that the Dominion needs more and more 
people, and from managing vice presidents to dining-car 
stewards, each seems to have constituted himself an enter¬ 
tainment committee of one. I have never received any¬ 
where more courteous treatment from train men, and I 
notice that neither the brakemen nor the sleeper con¬ 
ductors consider themselves above helping me with my 
numerous pieces of baggage. 

The Canadian Pacific has a chain of thirteen hotels 
supplemented by eleven bungalow camps extending from 
St. Andrews, New Brunswick, to Victoria in British Col¬ 
umbia. The Canadian National lines operate half as 
many between Ottawa and the Rockies. Both organiza¬ 
tions are most enterprising in selling not merely transpor¬ 
tation, but all the attrac tions, business opportunities, and 
resources of Canada. Either one will cheerfully locate a 
newly arrived immigrant on the land, take an American 
sportsman on a hunting trip, find a factory site or lumber 
tract for a group of capitalists, or help a bridegroom plan 
his honeymoon journey. Both are tremendous forces for 
advertising Canada. 


159 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

Canada’s railroads have made the country. They 
have always been, and still are, ahead of the population 
and the traffic. Settlement in Canada has followed, in¬ 
stead of preceding, railroad construction, and the roads 
themselves have had to colonize the territories served by 
new lines. Uneconomic railroad building has been a part 
of the price the Dominion has had to pay, not only for 
settlers, but also for political unity. Both the Maritime 
Provinces and British Columbia refused to become parts 
of the Dominion except on condition that the Ottawa 
government build railways connecting them with central 
Canada. From that day to this, political pressure has 
been the force behind much of the railroad building in 
the Dominion. 

The Canada that we know to-day may be said to have 
had its beginning when the Canadian Pacific Railway was 
put through to the west coast. In 1880 the job was 
turned over to a syndicate that soon became world famous. 
Its contract called for completion of the line in ten years, 
but it was finished within half that time. This saved 
British Columbia to the Dominion, and gave the British 
Empire another link in its world communications, includ¬ 
ing a direct route through its own possessions to the Far 
East and Australia. Within two years after it reached 
the western ocean, the Canadian Pacific began its steam¬ 
ship service to Japan and China, and tapped the Orient 
for cargoes to furnish traffic on its land line. Sixteen 
years later it bridged the Atlantic. It now has on both 
oceans a fleet of more than thirty vessels, including some 
of the finest passenger steamers afloat. In its lake, river, 
and coastwise services it operates fifty additional ships. 
It offers now a favoured route between London and the 
160 


TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 


Far East. The distance from Canton, China, to Liver¬ 
pool, via Canada, is fifteen hundred miles shorter than by 
way of San Francisco and New York, and the journey 
takes much less time than that by the Suez or Panama all¬ 
water routes. 

Much of the main line between Montreal and Vancou¬ 
ver is being double tracked; the mountain grades are con¬ 
stantly being reduced; tunnels are taking the place of 
construction exposed to the snows; branches and connec¬ 
tions have been extended northward into new country, and 
southward to connect with United States lines. To pay 
its nearly seventy-five thousand employees takes almost 
eight million dollars a month. Its car shops at Angus, 
near Montreal, are one of the largest works of the kind on 
the continent, and they employ more than six thousand 
men. Its freight yard at Winnipeg is among the biggest 
in the world. Though the company is not fifty years old, 
its total assets were recently valued at a figure in excess of 
one billion dollars. It is, next to the government, the 
most powerful single organization within the Dominion, 
and its influence is felt in Europe and Asia. 

The success of the Canadian Pacific, and the develop¬ 
ment that followed, started in Canada the fever for rail¬ 
road construction that burned itself out only a few years 
ago. The provincial and the Dominion governments and 
even municipalities eagerly backed almost any railroad 
project that promised to open up new territory. Not only 
were charters granted freely, but the obligations of the con¬ 
structing companies were guaranteed, and cash subsidies 
advanced to the promoters of new lines. The actual trans¬ 
portation needs of large areas were discounted decades in 
advance, and competing lines were built parallel to one 
161 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

another in districts producing hardly enough traffic for 
a single railroad. 

In 1903 the Grand Trunk, the oldest railroad system 
in Canada, contracted with the government for the con¬ 
struction of a new transcontinental line from Quebec to 
Winnipeg and from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert, a new 
terminus on the Pacific Coast, a total of 3559 miles. In 
the meantime, another road, the Canadian Northern, 
starting in Manitoba, spread itself through the prairie 
provinces, crossed the Rockies, and entered into competi¬ 
tion with the Canadian Pacific at Vancouver. By 1914 
it had bought and built a total of 9400 miles of railway. 
The Grand Trunk also had grown, and it then had 7500 
miles of tracks, a chain of hotels, steamship lines on the 
Pacific coast, and grain elevators and terminals in the 
Dominion and the United States. Both roads crossed 
the Rockies at the same point, giving Canada two trans¬ 
continental lines over the northern route where one would 
have been plenty. 

It was in 1914 that these railroad chickens came home 
to Ottawa to roost, and the end of the World War found 
the government up to its neck in the transportation busi¬ 
ness. This did not come about by anybody's choosing, 
but through the working of forces set in motion years ago. 
The Dominion government was first led into running rail¬ 
roads by its bargain with the Maritime Provinces. Out of 
this came government operation of the Intercolonial Rail¬ 
ways serving the eastern provinces and joining them to 
the St. Lawrence basin. This system never earned any 
profits. The government built the National Trans¬ 
continental from Quebec to Winnipeg on the understand¬ 
ing that the Grand Trunk would lease it for fifty years. 

162 


TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 


When it was finished, the corporation begged off, and the 
government was compelled to operate the line. In 1914, 
the owners of the Canadian Northern announced that 
unless they received sixty million dollars at once they 
would have to suspend. They got the money. Two 
years later it was the Grand Trunk Pacific that appealed 
to Ottawa for financial aid. Sustaining these railroads 
was such a drain on the public treasury that finally the 
government assumed responsibility for all their obligations 
and absolute control of the properties. It then began to 
weld them into the single system now known as the 
Canadian National Railways. 

For years the Canadian Pacific Railway has paid 
dividends regularly. The lines making up the Canadian 
National have, for the most part, never paid anything, 
and they were unloaded upon the government because 
they were regarded more as liabilities than as assets. As 
the largest taxpayer in Canada, the Canadian Pacific Rail¬ 
way Company must contribute indirectly to the support 
of its competitor, unless the government lines are able to 
earn their own way. 

After the war, one year's deficit on the government lines 
was sixty-seven million dollars. In railroad subsidies, 
Canada has paid out nearly three hundred million dollars. 
Bonds and other railroad obligations to the total of four 
hundred and fifty-five millions have been guaranteed, 
while four hundred and seventy millions of public moneys 
were spent in building roads for the government. One 
student of Canada's railroad policy tells me that the na¬ 
tional treasury would now be four hundred millions to the 
good if the government had given the National Trans¬ 
continental, the Canadian Northern, and the Grand 
163 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Trunk Pacific to some corporation, and had thrown in a 
cash bonus of two hundred millions besides. 

The government railroads now furnish a complete ser¬ 
vice to virtually all parts of Canada, including the chief 
ports, from Halifax on the east coast to Vancouver and 
Prince Rupert on the west. The Canadian National 
Railways operate the Grand Trunk hotels and west coast 
steamers, and also the sixty-five ships of the Canadian 
Government Merchant Marine, which sail the seven seas. 
The curious situation exists of railroads owned by the gov¬ 
ernment of Canada using two thousand miles of track in 
the United States. Nothing was thought of the Grand 
Trunk having terminals at Portland, Maine and New 
London, Connecticut, and Chicago, but the government 
ownership of these properties raises the possibility of 
conflict between the two countries in railroad matters. 

The government is fortunate in having in charge of 
the Canadian National lines Sir Henry Thornton, one of the 
great railroad men of the time. To him all Canada is look¬ 
ing to find the way out of the wilderness into which circum¬ 
stances have brought the Dominion. Under his adminis¬ 
tration duplicated services are being eliminated, and the 
deficits have been greatly reduced. He is confident the 
lines can be made self-supporting. He said the other day: 

“The world expects the Canadian National Railways 
to fail. It does not believe that we can make them suc¬ 
ceed. I do. I believe that if the army of workers lines up 
behind us, we shall achieve the greatest success the annals 
of transportation have ever recorded/’ 

Though he is to-day a British subject, Sir Henry was 
born an American. His boyhood home was in Lafayette, 
Indiana. From St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and 
164 


TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 


the University of Pennsylvania, he went to the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Railroad. He rose to be manager of the Long Island 
Railroad, where he had much to do with the construction 
and operation of the Pennsylvania Terminal in New York 
City. England sent for him in 1914 to manage the Great 
Eastern Railway, which has the largest passenger traffic 
of any railroad in the world, and during the war he was in 
charge of all British army transportation in Europe. 

Sir Henry is not the first railroad genius America has 
furnished to Canada. Lord Shaughnessy, for many years 
the president and then the chairman of the Canadian 
Pacific, was born in Milwaukee. When he was a boy of 
fifteen he went to work for the Chicago, Milwaukee and 
St. Paul Railroad. I once spent a morning with him in his 
office at Montreal, where he told me of his early career 
and his vision of the future of Canada and the great trans¬ 
portation system that he had raised up from infancy. His 
successor, E. W. Beatty, is the first Canadian-born presi¬ 
dent the Canadian Pacific has ever had. 

Thomas Shaughnessy came to Canada at the invitation 
of William Van Horne, another American. Van Horne be¬ 
came the manager of the project after the government had 
given up hope of building a road across western Canada. 
It was he who carried it through the early period of desper¬ 
ate struggle with the wilderness and the equally desperate 
fight for money with which to meet the payroll. Years ago 
he established the present policy of courtesy to passengers, 
and placarded the system with a demand for “Parisian 
politeness on the C. P. R.” During their regime, both men 
had associated with them many other Americans whom 
they called to Canada to lend a hand in one of the great¬ 
est transportation jobs the world has ever known. 

165 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE LAND OF FURS 


OR four hundred years furs from Canada have 



been warming the flesh and enhancing the charms 


of feminine beauty. It is to-day the chief breed- 


JL ing place of animals valued for their skins, and 
it is likely to remain so for centuries to come. 

When the settlement of North America was at its be¬ 
ginning, the French adventurers making fortunes in furs 
did their best to discourage the incoming colonists, for 
they knew that this meant the death of the wilderness. 
If they could have had their way, all that is now Canada 
would have been left to the Indian trappers and the white 
traders who relieved them of their annual catches. As 
it is, improved methods of transportation, trapping, and 
hunting are reducing the available supply, and the de¬ 
mand is such that the furrers have had to popularize 
skins formerly despised as too common, and many Cana¬ 
dians have gone into the business of breeding fur-bearing 
animals. 

Winnipeg has long been an important city in the Cana¬ 
dian fur trade, and here the world’s greatest fur organiza¬ 
tion has its headquarters. I refer, of course, to the Hudson’s 
Bay Company, which for more than two hundred and 
fifty years has been bartering goods for the furs of British 
North America. It was founded when the British had 
scarcely a foothold in Canada, and its operations won for 


166 



The fur business of Canada has its beginning when the company 
trader strikes a bargain with the Eskimo for his season’s catch of the 
white fox of the arctic and other skins. 




The Hudson’s Bay Company has more than two hundred trading posts 
where Indians, Eskimos, and white trappers exchange furs for goods. 
Eighteen of the stations lie near or north of the Arctic Circle. 



Most of the fine fox skins now marketed in Canada come from animals 
raised in captivity on fur farms. Occasionally a cat may act as a sub¬ 
stitute mother for a litter of fox kittens. 











THE LAND OF FURS 


them their dominion over the northwestern part of our 
continent. In the beginning it was but one of many 
trading enterprises of the New World. To-day i: has 
adapted itself to the tremendous changes in our civilization 
and it is bigger, stronger, and richer than ever. 

Massachusetts Colony was not fifty years old when the 
Nonsuch, loaded to the waterline with the first cargo of 
furs, sailed for England from Hudson Bay. The success 
of the voyage led the dukes and lords who backed the 
venture to ask King Charles II for a charter. This was 
granted in 1670, and thus came into existence, so far as 
the word of a king could make it so, “The Governor and 
Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hud¬ 
son's Bay," exclusive lords and proprietors of a vast and 
but vaguely known region extending from Hudson Bay 
westward, with sole rights to fish, hunt, and trade therein. 

It remained for the Company to make good the priv¬ 
ileges conferred by the charter and maintain the profits, 
which at that period sometimes amounted to one hundred 
per cent, a year. For nearly a century the company's ships 
and forts did battle with the armed forces of the French. 
For another long period its factors and traders had to meet 
the attacks of rival companies. At times the company 
was nearly wiped out by the heavy losses it sustained. 
For almost two centuries it furnished the only govern¬ 
ment of the Canadian Northwest, and without the use of 
a standing army it administered a vast region, out of 
which provinces and territories have since been carved. 

The “Company of Adventurers" has now become a 
fifteen million dollar corporation, paying regularly five per 
cent, on ten million dollars’ worth of preferred stock. A 
fleet of river, lake, and ocean steamers has succeeded the 
167 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Nonsuch. The early trading posts, stocked with crude 
tools, weapons, and ornaments for the Indians, have been 
supplemented by a chain of eleven department stores, 
extending from Winnipeg to Vancouver, and at the same 
time the number of trading posts exchanging goods for 
furs is greater than ever. There are about two hundred 
of these posts, eighteen of which are near or north of 
the arctic circle. The Company no longer actually 
governs any territory, and it is selling to settlers the re¬ 
mainder of the seven million acres in the fertile belt it 
has received from the Dominion since the surrender of its 
ancient rights in the Northwest. 

The story of the Hudson's Bay Company is a large part 
of the history of Canada. Many books have been written 
about it, and countless romances built upon the lives of its 
men stationed in the wilds. Here at Winnipeg the com¬ 
pany has an historical exhibit where one may visualize the 
life of the trappers and the traders, and gain an idea of 
the adventures that are still commonplaces in their 
day's work. The company museum contains specimen 
skins of every kind of Canadian fur-bearing animal. 
The life of the Indians and the Eskimos is reproduced 
through the exhibits of their tools, boats, weapons, and 
housekeeping equipment. 

The success of the Hudson's Bay Company has rested 
upon its relations with the Indians. The organization is 
proud of the fact that it has never engaged in wars with 
the tribes. The business has always been on a voluntary 
basis, and the Indians have to come to the Company 
posts of their own free will. At first the traders’ stocks 
were limited, but through centuries of contact with civiliza¬ 
tion the wants of the red man have increased and become 
168 


THE LAND OF FURS 


more varied. They now include nearly everything that a 
white man would wish if he were living in the woods. 

The first skins brought in from Hudson Bay were 
practically all beavers. This led to the exchange being 
based on the value of a single beaver skin, or “made 
beaver.” Sticks, quills, or brass tokens were used, each 
designating a “made beaver,” or a fraction thereof. The 
prices of a pound of powder, a gun, or a quart of glass 
beads were reckoned in “made beaver.” 

Early in its history the Company decided that Scotch¬ 
men made the best traders and were most successful in 
dealing with the Indians. Young Scotchmen were usually 
apprenticed as clerks on five-year contracts, and if success¬ 
ful they might hope to become traders, chief traders, fac¬ 
tors, and chief factors. Men in these grades were con¬ 
sidered officers of the company and received commissions. 
Mechanics and men engaged in the transport service were 
known as “servants” of the company, and the distinction 
between “servants,” clerks, and officers was almost as 
marked as in the various military ranks of an army. 
To-day, Canada is divided into eleven districts, each of 
which is in charge of a manager, and the old titles are no 
longer used. 

A trader had to be a diplomat to preserve friendly rela¬ 
tions with the Indians, an administrator to manage the 
Company's valuable properties in his charge, a shrewd 
bargainer to dispose of his stock on good terms, and at 
times soldier and explorer besides. The Company's char¬ 
ter authorized it to apply the laws of England in the terri¬ 
tories under its jurisdiction, and its agents frequently had 
to administer justice with a stern hand. It early became 
the inflexible policy to seek out a horse thief, incendiary, or 
169 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


murderer among the Indians and impose punishment, and 
it was the trader who had to catch his man and sometimes 
to execute him. 

It was the activities of its rivals, and especially of the 
Northwest Company, that resulted in the establishment 
of the inland stations of the Hudson's Bay Company. As 
long as it had a monopoly, the Company was content to 
set up posts at points convenient for itself, and let the 
Indians do all the travelling, sometimes making them go 
as much as one thousand miles to dispose of their furs. The 
opposition, however, carried goods to the Indians, and 
thus penetrated to the far Northwest and the Mackenzie 
River country. This competition compelled the older 
organization to extend its posts all over Canada, and 
finally, in 1821, led to its absorption of the Northwest 
Company. To-day the chief competitor of the Hudson’s 
Bay Company is the French firm of Revillon Freres. 

The merger with the Northwest Company was pre¬ 
ceded by years of violent struggle. The younger concern 
was the more aggressive. It tried to keep the Indians 
from selling furs to the Hudson’s Bay traders. Its men 
destroyed the traps and fish nets, and stole the weapons, 
ammunition, and furs of their rivals. Neither was above 
almost any method of tricking the other if thereby furs 
might be gained. Once some Hudson’s Bay men dis¬ 
covered the tracks of Indians returning from a hunt. They 
at once gave a great ball, inviting the men of the near by 
post of the rival company. While they plied their guests 
with all forms of entertainment, a small party packed four 
sledges with trade goods and stole off to the Indian camp. 
The next day the Northwest men heard of the arrival of 
the Indians and went to them to barter for furs, only to 
170 


THE LAND OF FURS 


find that all had been sold to the Hudson’s Bay traders. 
At another time two rival groups of traders met en route 
to an Indian camp and decided to make a night of it. 
But the Northwest men kept sober, and, when the Hud¬ 
son’s Bay men were full of liquor, tied them to their sleds 
and started their dog teams back on the trail over which 
they had come. The Northwest traders then went on to 
the Indians and secured all the furs. 

The Hudson’s Bay Company sends all of its raw skins 
to London, where they are graded and prepared for the 
auction sales attended by fur buyers from all over the 
world. It does not sell any in Canada. 

Nevertheless, the Dominion is an important fur-making 
centre. During a recent visit to Quebec, I spent a morn¬ 
ing with the manager of a firm which handles millions of 
dollars’ worth of furs every year. It has its own work¬ 
shops where the skins are cured and the furs dressed and 
made into garments. The name of this firm is Holt, 
Renfrew and Company. Let us go back to Quebec and 
pay it a visit. 

Imagine a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of furs 
under one roof! Picture to your minds raw skins in bales, 
just as they were unloaded from an Indian canoe, and then 
look again and see wraps and coats made from them that 
would each bring five thousand dollars when sold on Fifth 
Avenue. If your imagination is vivid enough you may 
see the American beauties who will wear them and know 
how the furs will add to the sparkle of their eyes and at 
the same time lighten the purses of their sweethearts and 
husbands. 

We shall first go to the cold storage rooms. Here are 
piles of sealskins from our Pribilof Islands. Put one of 
171 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


these furs against your cheek. It feels like velvet. In 
these rooms are beavers from Labrador, sables from Rus¬ 
sia, and squirrels from Siberia. There are scores of fox 
skins—blue, silver, black, and white. Some of them come 
from the cold arctic regions and others from fox farms not 
twenty minutes distant by motor. Take a look at this 
cloak of silvery gray fur. A year ago the skins from which 
it was made were on the backs of hair seals swimming 
in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. 

As we go through the factory, some of the secrets of fur 
making are whispered to us. For example, this bale con¬ 
tains fifteen hundred skins of the muskrat. The animals 
which produced them will change their names after a 
trip to the dyers. They will go into the vats and when 
they come out they will be Hudson Bay seals, and eventu¬ 
ally will find their way into a black coat with a wonderful 
sheen. Years ago the muskrat skin was despised. Now 
it is made into coats that, under the trade name of Hudson 
seal, bring nearly as much as those of real seal. 

Here are two Russian sables, little fellows of beautiful 
fur, that together will form a single neck piece. The un¬ 
dressed skins are worth seven hundred dollars the pair. 
As we look, the manager shows us two native sables that 
seem to be quite as fine. He tells us they can be had for 
eighty-five dollars each, or less than a quarter of the price 
of the Russian. 

The most valuable fur in the world to-day is the sea 
otter, of which this firm gets only three or four skins in a 
year. But, in contrast, over there is a whole heap of 
Labrador otters, beautiful furs, which will wear almost 
for ever and will look almost as well as the sea otter itself. 
But you can have your choice of these at forty dollars 
172 


THE LAND OF FURS 


apiece. They are cheap chiefly because the Labrador skin 
is not in fashion with women. Fashion in furs is con¬ 
stantly changing. Not many years ago a black fox 
skin often brought as much as fifteen hundred dollars. 
To-day, so many are coming from the fur farms that the 
price has fallen to one hundred and fifty dollars. Scarcity 
is one of the chief considerations in determining the value 
of furs, and fashion always counts more than utility. The 
rich, like the kings of old, demand something that the poor 
cannot have, and lose their interest in the genuine furs 
when their imitations have become common and cheap. 

The dyer and his art have greatly changed the fur trade. 
It is he who enables the salesgirl to wear furs that look 
like those of her customers. For example, here is a coat 
made of the best beaver. Its price is four hundred dollars, 
and beside it is another made of dyed rabbit fur, marked 
one hundred and fifty dollars. It is hard for a novice to 
tell which is the better. All sorts of new names have been 
devised by the furriers to popularize dyed skins of hum¬ 
ble animals, from house cats to skunks, in order to in¬ 
crease the supply of good-looking and durable furs. Re¬ 
liable dealers will tell you just what their garments are 
made of, but the unscrupulous pass off the imitations as 
the genuine article. 

The business of dyeing furs was developed first in Ger¬ 
many, when that country led the world in making dyes. 
Now that New York is competing with London as a great 
fur market many of the best German dyers are at work 
there. From the standpoint of the consumer, the 
chief objection to dyed fur is that the natural never fades, 
while the dyed one is almost certain to change its hue after 
a time. 


173 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Now let us go into the rooms where the furs are made 
up. It is like a tailor shop. Here is a designer, evolving 
new patterns out of big sheets of paper. There are the 
cutters, making trimmings, stoles, neck pieces, and coats. 
Each must be a colour expert, for a large part of the secret 
of fashioning a beautiful fur garment is in the skillful 
matching of the varying shades to give pleasing effects. 
Were the skins for a coat sewn together just as they come 
from the bale, the garment resulting would be a weird¬ 
looking patchwork. Even before the skins are selected, 
they must be graded for the colours and shadings which go 
far to determine their value. There are no rules for this 
work; it takes a natural aptitude and long experience. 
In the London warehouse of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
the men of a single family have superintended the grading 
of all the millions of skins handled there for more than 
one hundred years. 

Turn over this unfinished beaver coat lying on the bench 
and look at the wrong side. See how small are the pieces 
of which it is made and how irregular are their shapes. It 
is a mass of little patches, yet the outer, or right side, looks 
as though it were made of large skins, all of about the same 
size and shape. A coat of muskrat, transformed by dye¬ 
ing into Hudson seal, may require seventy-five skins; a 
moleskin coat may contain six hundred. But in making 
up either garment each skin must be cut into a number of 
pieces and fitted to others in order to get the blending of 
light and dark shades which means beauty and quality. 


J74 



The Eskimo woman and her children wear as every-day necessities furs 
which if made into more fashionable garments would bring large sums. 
Usually the whole family goes on the annual trip to the trading post. 





As Saskatchewan was not made a province until 1904, Regina is one 
of the youngest capital cities in Canada. It was for many years the head¬ 
quarters of the Mounted Police for all the Northwest. 


















CHAPTER XXIII 


SASKATCHEWAN 

W E HAVE left Winnipeg and are now trav¬ 
elling across the great Canadian prairie, 
which stretches westward to the Rockies 
for a distance of eight hundred miles. 
This land, much of which in summer is in vast fields of 
golden grain, is now bare and brown, extending on and 
on in rolling treeless plains as far as our eyes can reach. 
Most of it is cut up into sections a mile square, divided 
by highway spaces one hundred feet wide. However, an 
automobile or wagon can go almost anywhere on the 
prairie, and everyone makes his own road. 

Sixty miles west of Winnipeg we pass Portage la 
Prairie, near where John Sanderson, the man who filed the 
first homestead on the prairies, is still living. This part of 
the Dominion was then inhabited by Indians, and its only 
roads were the buffalo trails made by the great herds that 
roamed the country. To-day it is dotted with the com¬ 
fortable homes of prosperous farmers, and the transcon¬ 
tinental railways have brought it within a few days’ 
travel of the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards. 

A hundred and fifty miles farther west we cross the 
boundary into Saskatchewan, the greatest wheat province 
of the Dominion. It has an area larger than that of any 
European country except Russia, and is as large as France, 
Belgium, and Holland combined. From the United States 
V75 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

boundary, rolling grain lands extend northward through 
more than one third of its area. The remainder is 
mostly forest, thinning out toward Reindeer Lake and 
Lake Athabaska at the north, and inhabited chiefly by 
deer, elk, moose, and black bear. There are saw-mills at 
work throughout the central part of the province, and the 
annual lumber cut is worth in the neighbourhood of two 
million dollars. 

Except at the southwest, Saskatchewan is well watered. 
The Saskatchewan River, which has many branches, 
drains the southern and central sections. This stream in 
the early days was a canoe route to the Rockies. For a 
long time afterward, when the only railway was the Cana¬ 
dian Pacific line in the southern part of the province, the 
river was the highway of commerce for the north. It was 
used largely by settlers who floated their belongings down 
it to the homesteads they had taken up on its banks. 
Now the steamboats that plied there have almost entirely 
disappeared. The northern part of the province is made 
up of lakes and rivers so numerous that some of them have 
not yet been named. The southwest is a strip of semi- 
arid land that has been brought under cultivation by 
irrigation and now raises large crops of alfalfa. 

A small part of southwestern Saskatchewan, near the 
Alberta boundary, is adapted for cattle and sheep raising. 
The Chinook winds from the Pacific keep the winters mild 
and the snowfall light, so that live stock may graze in 
the open all the year round. Elsewhere the winters are 
extremely cold. The ground is frozen dry and hard, the 
lakes and streams are covered with ice, and the average 
elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above sea level 
makes the air dry and crisp. The people do not seem to 
176 


SASKATCHEWAN 


mind the cold. I have seen children playing out-of-doors 
when it was twenty-five degrees below zero. The sum¬ 
mers are hot, and the long days of sunshine are just right 
for wheat growing. 

After travelling fourteen or fifteen hours from Winnipeg, 
we are in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, on the main 
line of the Canadian Pacific, about midway between 
Winnipeg and the Rockies. I visited it first in 1905, 
when the province was less than a year old. Until that 
time all the land between Manitoba and British Columbia, 
from the United States to the Arctic Ocean, belonged to 
the Northwest Territories. It had minor subdivisions, but 
the country as a whole was governed by territorial officials 
with headquarters at Regina. As the flood of immigrants 
began to spread over the West, the people of the wheat 
belt decided that they wanted more than a territorial 
government and so brought the matter before the Cana¬ 
dian parliament. As a result the great inland provinces of 
Saskatchewan and Alberta were formed. They are the 
only provinces in the Dominion that do not border on the 
sea. 

Regina was then a town of ragged houses, ungainly 
buildings, and wide streets with board sidewalks reaching 
far out into the country. One of the streets was two miles 
long, extending across the prairie to the mounted police 
barracks and the government house. Regina was the 
headquarters of the Northwest Mounted Police until that 
organization was amalgamated with the dominion force 
as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the city is 
still a training camp for recruits. Saskatchewan was not 
then old enough to have a state house, and the govern¬ 
ment offices were in rooms on the second floors of various 
177 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

buildings. Most of the provincial business was done in a 
little brick structure above the Bank of Commerce. 

The hotels of the town were then packed to overflowing, 
even in winter, and in the spring and summer it was not 
uncommon to find the halls filled with cots. I had to sleep 
in a room with two beds, and with a companion who snored 
so that he shook the door open night after night. It was 
of no use to complain, as the landlord could tell one to go 
elsewhere, knowing very well that there was no elsewhere 
but outdoors. 

To-day Regina is ten times as large as it was twenty 
years ago. It is a modern city with up-to-date hotels, ten 
banks, handsome parliament buildings, and twelve rail¬ 
way lines radiating in every direction. It is the largest 
manufacturing centre between Winnipeg and Calgary, 
and an important distributing point for farm implements 
and supplies. 

The dome of the capitol building, which was completed 
in 1911, can now be seen from miles away on the prairie. 
This is an imposing structure five hundred and forty-two 
feet long, situated in the midst of a beautiful park on the 
banks of an artificial lake made by draining Wascana Creek. 
The city has many other parks, and the residence streets 
are lined with young trees, planted within the last twenty 
years. Forty miles to the east is a government farm at 
Indian Head, where experiments are made in growing and 
testing trees suited to the prairies. Fifty million seedlings 
have been distributed in one year among the farms and 
towns. Out in the country the trees are planted as wind¬ 
breaks and to provide the farmers with fuel. They have 
greatly changed the aspect of the prairies within the last 
two decades. 


78 



The grain lands of western Canada begin in Manitoba in the fertile Red 
River valley, which is world famous for the fine quality of its wheat. From 
here to the Rockies is a prairie sea, with farmsteads for islands. 





American windmills tower over Saskatchewan prairie lands that were 
largely settled by American farmers. The province is still so thinly popu¬ 
lated that it has only five people to every ten square miles. 



The wheat harvest, like time and tide, waits for no man and when 
the crop is ready it must be promptly cut. The grain is usually threshed 
in the fields and sent at once to the nearest elevator. 










SASKATCHEWAN 


While in Regina I have had a talk with the governor- 
general of Saskatchewan in his big two-story mansion that 
twenty years ago seemed to be situated in the middle of 
the prairie. When I motored out to visit His Excellency, 
although I was wrapped in buffalo robes and wore a coon- 
skin coat and coon-skin cap, I was almost frozen, and 
when I entered the mansion it was like jumping from win¬ 
ter into the lap of summer. At one end of the house is a 
conservatory, where the flowers bloom all the time, al¬ 
though Jack Frost has bitten off all other vegetation with 
the “forty-degrees-below-zero teeth” he uses in this lati¬ 
tude. 

From Regina, the main line of the Canadian Pacific 
Railway runs west to Calgary. Were we to travel by that 
route, we should pass through Moose Jaw and Swift Cur¬ 
rent, two important commercial centres for the wheat 
lands. The story is told that Lord Dunsmore, a pioneer 
settler, once mended the wheel of his prairie cart with the 
jaw bone of a moose on the site of the former city, and thus 
gave the place its name. Moose Jaw is a live stock as 
well as a wheat shipping point. It has the largest stock 
yards west of Winnipeg. An extensive dairying industry 
has grown up in that region. 

North of Regina are Prince Albert and Battleford, noted 
for their fur trade and lumber mills, and also Saskatoon, 
the second largest city of the province, which we shall visit 
on our way to Edmonton. At Saskatoon is the University 
of Saskatchewan, which was patterned largely after the 
University of Chicago. It has the right to a Rhodes 
scholarship, and its departments include all the arts and 
sciences. 

As sixty per cent, of the people are dependent upon 
179 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


agriculture, farm courses receive much attention. A 
thousand-acre experimental farm is owned by the uni¬ 
versity and the engineering courses include the designing 
and operation of farm machinery. Even the elemen¬ 
tary schools are interested in agriculture, a campaign hav¬ 
ing been carried on recently to eradicate gophers, which 
destroy the wheat. The children killed two million of 
these little animals in one year, thereby saving, it is es¬ 
timated, a million bushels of grain. A department of 
ceramics has been organized at the university to experi¬ 
ment with the extensive clay deposits of the province, 
the various grades of which are suited for building brick, 
tile, pottery, and china. Saskatchewan's only other 
mineral of any importance is lignite coal, although nat¬ 
ural gas has been discovered at Swift Current. 


180 


CHAPTER XXIV 

THE WORLD'S LARGEST WHEATFIELD 

F OR the past two weeks I have been travelling 
through lands that produce ninety per cent, of Can¬ 
ada's most valuable asset—wheat. The Domin¬ 
ion is the second greatest wheat country in the 
world, ranking next to the United States. It is the 
granary of the British Empire, raising annually twice as 
much wheat as Australia and fifty million bushels more 
than India. The wheat crop is increasing and Canada 
may some day lead the world in its production. These 
prairies contain what is probably the most extensive un¬ 
broken area of grain land on earth. I n fact, so much wheat 
is planted in some regions that it forms an almost continu¬ 
ous field reaching for hundreds of miles. The soil is a 
rich black loam that produces easily twenty bushels to an 
acre, and often forty and fifty. 

The Canadian wheat belt extends from the Red River 
valley of Manitoba to the foothills of the Rockies, and 
from Minnesota and North Dakota northward for a dis¬ 
tance greater than from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. New 
wheat lands are constantly being opened, and large crops 
are now grown in the Peace River country, three hundred 
miles north of Edmonton. 

A man who is an authority on wheat raising tells me 
that the possible acreage in the Canadian West is enor¬ 
mous. Says he: 

181 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


“We have something like three hundred and twenty 
thousand square miles of wheat lands. Divide this in 
two, setting half aside for poor soil and mixed farming, and 
there is left more than one hundred thousand square miles. 
In round numbers, it is one hundred million acres, and the 
probability is that it can raise an average of twenty-five 
bushels to the acre. This gives us a possible crop of twenty- 
five hundred million bushels, which is more than three 
times as much as the United States produces in a year. I 
do not say that Canada will soon reach that figure, but her 
wheat yield will steadily increase, and it will not be long 
before it will equal yours. 

“We were producing grain near Winnipeg long before 
your Western states existed. Wheat was raised in Mani¬ 
toba by Lord Selkirk’s colony as far back as 1812. The 
settlers came in through Hudson Bay and worked their 
way down to the prairie. They were so far from the mar¬ 
kets that there was no demand outside their own wants, 
and it was only when the United States had developed its 
West that we began to farm in earnest. Even then we 
had to wait for the railroads, which were first built through 
early in the 8o’s.” 

More than half the total wheat crop of the Dominion 
is raised in Saskatchewan, and still only one fifth of the 
fifty-eight million acres of arable land in that province is 
under cultivation. Indeed, wheat here is what coals are 
to Newcastle or diamonds to Kimberley. This applies to 
quality as well as quantity, for at a recent International 
Grain and Hay Show held at Chicago a farmer from Sas¬ 
katchewan carried off the first prize for the best wheat 
grown on the North American continent. 

The principal wheat area extends from the southeast 
182 



Wheat is to Saskatchewan what coals are to Newcastle. With only 
one fifth of its arable land being farmed, the province raises more than 
half the total crop of the Dominion. 






Farming is done on a large scale on the great wheat farms. Ploughs 
turning over twelve furrows at a time are pulled by traction engines, and 
when the wheat is ripe a dozen binders are started in one field. 





THE WORLD’S LARGEST WHEATFIELD 


corner of the province northwesterly along the valley of 
the Saskatchewan River to the Alberta boundary. This 
belt is five hundred miles long and in some places two hun¬ 
dred miles wide. Many of its farms contain thousands of 
acres, and the average holding is three hundred and twenty 
acres, with one hundred and fifty acres in wheat. When the 
land was first settled, wheat was the only crop raised, 
but mixed farming is becoming more important each year 
and there are now large crops of oats, hay, and alfalfa. 

The dry climate and hot summer days of the prairies 
are just right for producing a hard grain, with the high 
gluten content that makes a big loaf of bread. In that 
quality Canadian wheat ranks highest in the world. It 
is mixed with even the finest of the United States product 
to produce the best flour. 

The chief varieties grown are red fife and marquis. 
Red fife was discovered by a Canadian farmer and is the 
older. Marquis was originated by a scientist of the 
Dominion Agricultural Department by crossing red fife 
with an early ripening Indian wheat known as hard red 
Calcutta. It was distributed among the farmers for gen¬ 
eral use in 1909, and quickly became the most valuable 
wheat produced in America. 

During various trips to Canada I have seen the wheat 
belt in all its aspects. As soon as the snow has melted and 
the frost is out of the ground the ploughs are started. The 
ploughing may be done by the farmers, each on his own 
land, or by contractors who make a business of preparing 
fields for planting, and who, later on, do much of the 
threshing. The ordinary farmer uses a gang plough and 
from four to a half dozen horses. With four horses he is 
able to plough more than two acres a day. Much of the 

183 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


work is done by tractors, which pull gang ploughs that 
turn over a strip of sod as wide as the average city side¬ 
walk. 

The next process is back-setting. This means going 
over the field again and throwing the furrows in the op¬ 
posite direction. Where the land is new, some of the 
farmers plough it in the spring and back-set it in the sum¬ 
mer, seeding it during the following spring. Others, who 
are anxious to get quick returns, sow wheat the same year 
that they break up the soil. Sometimes flax is planted 
as the first crop and wheat the next year. 

The old picture of the farmer going over the ploughed 
ground sowing the grain broadcast is something one never 
sees in Canada. The wheat here is planted with drills, 
usually pulled by four horses, although on the larger farms 
several drills, drawn by tractors, sometimes follow one 
another over the fields. 

The busiest time of the year comes with the harvest, 
which usually begins about the middle of August. The 
farmers now go to work with a vim. In many instances 
the women and the girls join the men and the boys in the 
fields. Nearly every man has his own harvesting ma¬ 
chinery and the girls sometimes drive the binders that cut 
the grain. At the same time thousands of labourers are 
brought in from the United States, eastern Canada, and 
even from England. They are transported at reduced 
rates by the railroads and are sure of work at good wages 
until the grain has been loaded upon the cars that take it 
to the head of the Great Lakes. 

Harvesting on the larger farms goes on from daybreak 
to dark, and sometimes even by twilight and moonlight. 
After the wheat reaches a certain point in ripening, it 
184 


THE WORLD’S LARGEST WHEATEIELD 

must be cut without delay. If it becomes wet it will 
deteriorate, and if left too long it will hull during the 
harvesting, or an untimely frost may ruin it. I have 
visited one farm near Dundurn where sixteen hundred 
acres of grain all became ripe overnight. The next morn¬ 
ing the owner started a dozen harvesters at work, keeping 
the machines going until every stalk was cut. Horses 
were put on in relays every four hours and there was no 
stopping to rest at the end of the field. In Alberta there 
is a farm five times as large, where sixty binders, each 
pulled by a four-horse team, are used to cut the crop. 

Riding through the country in the fall, one is seldom 
away from the sound of the threshing machine. Only 
a few farmers own these machines, most of the threshing 
being done by contractors and their crews who go from 
farm to farm. 

Imagine yourself with me at threshing time, and let 
us see how the work is done. The wheatfield we choose 
contains one thousand acres and it is spotted with shocks, 
or stooks, as they are called here. Each stook consists 
of a number of sheaves stood upon end on the ground 
with others so arranged on top that it will shed rain. A 
half dozen teams are moving over the field gathering up 
the stooks. As soon as a wagon is loaded it is driven to 
the thresher, into whose greedy mouth the sheaves are 
poured continuously from sunrise to sunset. At the 
same time grain is flowing out of the thresher into the 
wagons or motor trucks that carry it away. 

In the United States wheat is often held by the farmers 
for a favourable price. In Canada very few farms have 
their own granaries. The wheat goes from the threshing 
machine to the local elevator, or, if none is accessible, it is 
185 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


sent directly to the railroad and shipped to Fort William 
and Port Arthur. There are now elevators at fifteen 
hundred different places throughout the wheat region. 
Each of these stations has from one to nine elevators 
standing out on the landscape, indicating the productive¬ 
ness of the surrounding country. The elevators of Can¬ 
ada have a total capacity of two hundred and thirty-eight 
million bushels. There are companies that have chains 
of such granaries. They will either store the wheat for 
the farmer, handle it on commission, or buy it from him 
directly at a price based on the current market value of 
that in storage at Fort William. 

The wheat begins to come to the elevators about the 
first of September, and by the middle or latter part of 
October they are well filled. Each has a license, and is 
inspected regularly by the government. In order to 
maintain the high standard of western Canadian wheat, 
every shipment must be weighed and tested by a Domin¬ 
ion weigh-master. 

Many of the country elevators are owned by milling 
companies. The flour industry is centred in Ontario, 
the largest mill in the Dominion being at Port Colborne 
at the western end of the Welland Canal. Flour is manu¬ 
factured in large quantities also at Fort William, Toronto, 
Montreal, and Winnipeg. Smaller mills exist throughout 
Canada, and for many years the Hudson’s Bay Company 
operated one at Fort Vermilion, six hundred miles north¬ 
west of Winnipeg. Ten million barrels of flour are an¬ 
nually exported, almost half of which is taken by England. 

What Canada gets for her wheat depends not only 
on her own crop and that of the United States, but on 
conditions all over the world. Wheat is raised in every 
186 


THE WORLD’S LARGEST WHEATFIELD 


part of the globe, and is harvested in one place or another 
each month of the year. Therefore, a drought in Aus¬ 
tralia, a frost in Argentina, monsoons in India, new tariff 
laws in a given country, or a host of other reasons, may 
cause a drop or a rise in the prices here. In any event, 
though the price in Canada may be no higher than that 
paid in the United States, it represents a larger return on 
the original investment. The Canadian farmer has the ad¬ 
vantage of raising his wheat on land that has cost him 
perhaps only a third of what has been paid by his neigh¬ 
bour across the border. 


.87 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA 

W HEREVER I go in Canada I find the 
people on tiptoe with eagerness for the 
growth of their country. I do not mean 
that they are hungry for territory; they 
already have more than they can use for a century or two. 
The increases they are praying for are in population, in 
the size of their towns, in the area of land under cultiva¬ 
tion, and in the number of families settling new farms. 

For seventy-five years Canada has given a cordial wel¬ 
come to immigrants and during the last quarter of a cen¬ 
tury she has been conducting recruiting campaigns to get 
settlers. But where formerly immigration was only 
something to be desired, the situation to-day makes the 
coming of new people an imperative necessity. They are 
needed not merely to open up rich virgin lands, but to 
share the burden of carrying the national overhead. 

A single fact will make clear this situation. The in¬ 
terest on the Canadian national debt is five times what the 
total revenues of the government were before the World 
War. The people are faced with the alternative of having 
less to live on after their increased taxes are paid, or of 
dividing their heavier expenses among a larger number of 
producers. Naturally they prefer the latter. 

Canada’s per capita debt mounted from seventy-two 
dollars in 1914 to three hundred and twenty-two dollars 
188 


THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA 


three years after the war, and the total stands to-day at 
just under three billion dollars. The war has not only 
multiplied the public debt, but it has also greatly reduced 
immigration. The population of Canada is now nearly 
nine million, and if the high rate of increase that prevailed 
for the five years preceding 1914 is regained it will soon 
be ten million and more. The national production and 
revenues in that case will grow proportionately, and the 
individual share of the burden of taxes and debt will be 
considerably less. 

The prediction of James J. Hill, many years ago, that 
Canada would have fifty million people by 1950 seems un¬ 
likely to be fulfilled, but every Canadian expects the popu¬ 
lation of his country eventually to reach that figure. The 
Dominion has four hundred and forty million acres of land 
suitable for cultivation. Only one fourth of this area 
is even occupied, and but thirteen per cent, is being tilled. 
To get men and women on the unoccupied lands is a na¬ 
tional policy of the government that enjoys the support 
of all the people. 

Canada’s banner year was 1913, when more than four 
hundred thousand immigrants settled in the Dominion. 
During the war not one eighth of this number came in. 
The annual inflow is now only one fourth what it was 
the year before the World War, and about as many more 
are added by natural increase. If there is no radical 
change in conditions Canada should gain at least a million 
about every five years. On the other hand, she has lost 
population by emigration, especially to the United States. 

Two racial stocks—Britishand French—make upeighty- 
three per cent, of the population. With our “melting pot” 
example next door, Canada is determined to preserve her 
189 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


race character, and she controls immigration accordingly. 
She tries to get settlers chiefly from the British Isles, the 
northern countries of Europe, and the United States. 
Labourers from Japan and China are no longer admitted, 
though for many years the head taxes of five hundred 
dollars on each Chinese who came in paid most of the ex¬ 
penses of promoting general immigration. 

We might profit by the way Canada regulates her im¬ 
migration, In the first place, the government has wide 
discretion as to what kinds of people shall come in. 
It can partially close the gates during dull times, and 
open them wide when times are good. Immigrants are 
admitted only as the authorities are satisfied that they are 
fitted to work on the land and that they can become self- 
supporting. Government agents in foreign countries 
start immigrants on their way, and others meet them on 
their arrival. Canada does not allow hordes of foreigners 
to be thrown into her cities. She guides them out to the 
land, and helps them to establish themselves there. She 
has no fixed quota law such as ours, but she is vastly 
more particular as to whom she admits. 

Besides the government, both the Canadian National 
and the Canadian Pacific railways maintain immigration 
offices abroad. The C P. R. at one time had practically 
all Europe covered with agents engaged in drumming for 
immigrants, whom it brought across the Atlantic in its 
own steamers, carried through Canada on its own trains, 
and located on farms along its own lines. When that 
road was built the company received a grant of twenty- 
five million acres of government land. Four fifths of these 
have been sold, but the company still has five million 
acres for settlers. At the present time, it is selling land for 
190 



Canada feels acutely the need of more population. She not only wel¬ 
comes settlers from the British Isles, northern Europe, and the United 
States, but gives them every assistance in establishing themselves on the 
land. 









It is still possible for the immigrant to take up good land in Canada 
with the reasonable hope of making it into such a ranch as this. Many 
of the richest farmers of to-day came from the United States. 








THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA 


a cash payment of only one seventh of the purchase price, 
the balance to be paid within thirty-five years. 

The government and the railroads spend large sums in 
advertising Canada as the Land of Great Opportunity. 
Ottawa and each of the provincial capitals produce litera¬ 
ture by the ton. Information bureaus are maintained 
that answer every conceivable question about the re¬ 
sources and farming conditions in all parts of the Domin¬ 
ion. The government regularly exhibits at fairs in the 
United States and also in the United Kingdom. It 
distributes photographs and “movie” films, and sends 
out lecturers to tell of the glories of Canadian life. It 
advertises in our American farm journals and plasters the 
countries of northern Europe with posters. The Cana¬ 
dian Pacific conducts publicity campaigns for the purpose 
of attracting both tourists and settlers, and for forty 
years it has been a great force for the settlement and 
upbuilding of the Dominion. 

For many years the bulk of the immigration from over¬ 
seas has come from the British Isles. During the periods 
of unemployment in England thousands of jobless men 
have made a new start on this side of the Atlantic. In one 
single summer, more than eleven thousand British young 
men came here to help in the harvest, and all but four hun¬ 
dred decided to stay. Relief societies in England have 
sent over several thousand destitute boys and girls, who 
work with farmers for their board, lodging, and schooling. 
In southern Alberta small parcels of land of from five to 
ten acres are being reserved for farm labourers who, though 
putting in most of their time working for others, may thus 
get a start toward having farms of their own. 

The government extended to all British soldiers who 
191 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


served in the World War the same offer she made to her 
own men to set them up as farmers, and within a few years 
thirty thousand of them were placed on the land. It also 
loaned the former soldiers up to seventy-five hundred 
dollars each, and employed farm experts to train them and 
to help them get started. Eighty per cent, of them are re¬ 
garded as making good. 

As in the United States, domestic servants are at a 
premium. Consequently, young unmarried women are 
urged to come to the country. While in Toronto the 
other day I saw a party of fifty girls, Scotch, Irish, and 
English, who had just arrived from overseas under the 
wing of the Salvation Army. They were bright-eyed and 
rosy-cheeked. Their average age was eighteen. As soon 
as it was announced that the girls had arrived, the Salva¬ 
tion Army headquarters were surrounded by fashionable 
motor cars and overrun with Toronto women seeking 
cooks, maids, and governesses. Like the real bargains at 
a department store, this supply disappeared within a few 
hours. Some of the girls admitted privately that they 
were taking domestic employment only temporarily. 
They hoped soon to get places in factories or stores, or 
perhaps to find husbands. 

Out in the farming country of Saskatchewan, girls are 
in as great demand as in Toronto. A record was kept 
during a period of three years of five hundred and twenty- 
six girls who were advanced their expenses to Canada. All 
immediately found household positions, and only six gave 
up and went home. 

Canada estimates that each immigrant settler represents 
the addition of one thousand dollars to her national wealth. 
The railroads consider every man who takes up land along 
192 


THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA 

their lines worth seven hundred dollars as a producer of 
traffic. An even higher valuation is placed upon immi¬ 
grants from the United States, because they usually 
bring in more cash, farm equipment, and household goods 
than the Europeans. During the height of the American 
invasion of Canada, from 1910 to 1914, more than six 
hundred thousand citizens of the United States, most of 
them farm folk, came to this country. Many of them had 
several thousand dollars in cash, realized from the sale of 
their high-priced farms in the States. They used it to 
buy the cheap rich new lands of the wheat belt. Allowing 
a minimum of only one thousand dollars for each Ameri¬ 
can, this immigration from over the border gave Canada 
more than six hundred million dollars of new money for 
development. As a distinguished citizen here once ob¬ 
served, this is the cheapest new capital ever discovered; it car¬ 
ries no interest charge and is backed by muscle and brains. 

Within the last twenty-five years more than a million 
Americans have come into Canada, and in the prairie 
provinces they form a large part of the population. At 
one time, the government conducted campaigns to per¬ 
suade the agricultural population of our middle western 
states to come in. Its land agents had groups of our 
farmers name committees of their own number to visit 
Canada at government expense and see for themselves 
that everything was as they represented. In those days, 
western Canada enjoyed an old-fashioned land boom 
such as we had in the States a generation earlier. For¬ 
tunes were made by individuals and syndicates in dealing 
in Canadian lands. 

Boom conditions no longer prevail, and the best lands 
now command a good price, though still much less than 
193 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


equally fertile tracts in the United States. Free lands 
are still to be had, but only on condition that the settler 
become a naturalized Canadian citizen. If an immigrant 
is not suited with the available free land, or if he chooses 
to retain his nationality, he is given every assistance in the 
selection and purchase of privately owned lands at a fair 
price. 

Canada has had some curious experiences with coloni¬ 
zation, especially with certain European religious sects. 
Among these were the Mennonites and the Doukhobors 
from Russia. The latter claimed to be descendants of 
Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego, whom Nebuchadnezzar 
threw into the fiery furnace. They were an offshoot of 
the Greek Orthodox Church and lived by themselves be¬ 
yond the Caucasus Mountains. In the early years of this 
century, when they were having trouble with the Czar’s 
government, Quakers in the United States and England 
helped them to emigrate. A grant of two hundred and 
seventy-five thousand acres of land was secured from the 
Canadian government, and some seven or eight thousand 
of these people were transported to Canada. They were 
located near Yorkton, northwest of Winnipeg, where they 
established communistic villages and patterned their exist¬ 
ence on the life they had led in far-away Russia. 

All went well for a time, but the Canadians soon dis¬ 
covered that the Doukhobors were subject to periodic out¬ 
breaks of religious fanaticism that had many intolerable 
features. At times, they were seized with the notion that 
it was a sin to utilize the labour of animals, and so they 
turned off all their live stock. At other times, they had 
the idea that it was wrong to use machinery, and they 
scrapped their farm tools. But what brought them into 
194 



Corn is now grown successfully far north of the United States. Once 
thought to be suitable only for wheat growing and cattle raising, the 
prairies of Alberta have become the centre of mixed farming in the West. 







The part played by Canada’s railroads in colonizing her prairie prov¬ 
inces can hardly be overestimated. They maintain immigration agents 
abroad, and spend large sums in advertising the Dominion’s attractions. 



In helping a settler get started, the Canadian Pacific Railway may 
provide him with a house and barn built on some of the land still available 
out of its grant of twenty-five million acres. 










THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA 

most serious conflict with the authorities were the pil¬ 
grimages they made to meet Christ on the prairie. It was 
their notion that they must not appear before Him on his 
second coming except in their natural condition of complete 
nakedness. At one time seventeen hundred men, women, 
and children marched into Yorkton stark naked. At 
another, six hundred Doukhobors wandered off naked in 
mid-winter. On each occasion of this sort, the police had 
to round them up and confine them until they became sane 
enough to put on clothes and conduct themselves normally. 
Later they moved some of their colonies into British 
Columbia and many of them returned to Russia. 

There are now more than thirty thousand Mennonites 
in Canada. They were originally Lutherans from Poland 
and Prussia, who about 1787 accepted refuge in Russia 
from religious persecution at home. They were favoured 
for a time by the Russian government, and became pros¬ 
perous farmers and stock raisers, and also manufacturers. 
Just before the Canadian Pacific Railway was built, a num¬ 
ber of them emigrated to Canada, settling along the Red 
River Valley in Manitoba. Their migration was financed 
to the extent of a million dollars by the Canadian govern¬ 
ment. This the Mennonites later repaid, and their com¬ 
munities thrived and prospered. 

After the World War, the Mennonites in Russia suffered 
severely at the hands of the Soviet government. Their 
lands, factories, and other possessions were confiscated. 
Thereupon, with the aid of wealthy Mennonites in Penn¬ 
sylvania, a fresh emigration to Canada was financed. 
These Mennonites were taken to southern Manitoba and 
Saskatchewan, where they were located on desirable 
lands. Among them were some who before the revolution 
195 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


in Russia owned farms of from ten to fifteen thousand 
acres. One man had been worth a half million dollars, 
and was one of the largest horse breeders in Russia. Of 
the Mennonites who first came to Canada, some have since 
gone to Mexico, where they have formed colonies similar 
to those established in the Dominion. 

The immigration offices of Canada are filled with stories 
of settlers who have made good. Many of these stories 
are in the form of letters written by the men and the 
women who have fought and won their battles with the 
land, some of whom are now wealthy and nationally prom¬ 
inent. Canada is perhaps a generation nearer the pioneer 
stage than we are, and on her farms of the frontier thou¬ 
sands are to-day laying the foundations of fortunes, as our 
farmers did when they settled the West. From the human 
documents I have examined I quote the advice to pro¬ 
spective settlers given by a man who, twelve years after 
landing from England with one dollar in his pocket, sold 
out his farm for thirty-five thousand dollars. These, says 
he, are the secrets of success in Canada: 


1. Get a farm if it takes your last ten dollars. 

2. If you are not married, get married, for successful bachelor 

farmers are not plentiful. 

3. Give your hired help, and the members of your own family, an 

interest in the farm; whether it be a quarter section of land or 
a setting of eggs. Get them interested. 

4. Work with and for your neighbours. Cooperation is the A B C 

of success. Always lend a hand to those in need, especially 
newcomers, and you will be repaid a hundredfold. Above all, 
value the good-will of your neighbours. 

5. Lastly, be a true Canadian all the time, for no other country on 

earth will appreciate it so much or give so much in return. 


196 


CHAPTER XXVI 


EDMONTON—THE GATEWAY TO THE NORTHWEST 

C OME with me to Edmonton, the capital and 
second largest city of Alberta. It is built on 
high bluffs on both sides of the Saskatchewan 
River, and we can see standing out against the 
landscape the great steel girders of the Canadian Pacific 
‘'high level” bridge, which joins the north and south sec¬ 
tions of the city. Edmonton has between sixty-five and 
seventy thousand people. It is noted for its factories and 
wholesale houses and as a distributing point for the North¬ 
west. There are several meat packing houses here, and the 
city’s creameries supply forty per cent, of the entire output 
of butter in the province. It owns its own street railway, 
and its water, light, power, and telephone systems. It 
is an important educational centre, and in the University 
of Alberta has the farthest north college on the continent. 
It has eight hundred acres of parks and golf links belong¬ 
ing to the municipality. 

The city is not far from the site of a Hudson’s Bay Com¬ 
pany fort built in 1795. Near by was a trading post of 
the Northwest Fur Company, its one time rival. When, in 
1821, the two companies were amalgamated, a new fort 
was erected. This was called Edmonton, which was the 
name of the birthplace of the Hudson’s Bay official in 
charge. You remember how the English town figures 
in John Gilpin’s famous ride: 

197 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


To-morrow is our wedding day, 

And we will then repair 
Unto the Bell at Edmonton 
All in a chaise and pair. 

My sister and my sister's child, 

Myself and children three 

Will fill the chaise, so you must ride 

On horseback after we. 

For a half century afterward Edmonton was an import¬ 
ant trading and distributing point for all western Canada. 
Furs were sent from here down the Saskatchewan to York 
Factory on Hudson Bay, and supplies were packed over¬ 
land to the Athabaska and taken by canoe to the head 
waters of that stream. Some were floated down the river 
to Lake Athabaska, thence into Great Slave Lake, and on 
into the Mackenzie, which carried them to the trading 
posts near the Arctic. Big cargoes of goods are still 
shipped by that route every year, and hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of dollars’ worth of furs are brought back over it to 
Edmonton, to be sent on to New York or London. 

After the transfer of this northern territory from the 
Hudson’s Bay Company to the Canadian government, the 
town grew steadily. Its first real land boom occurred 
in 1882, when it was rumoured that the Canadian Pacific 
would build through here on its way to the Yellowhead 
Pass over the Rockies. The excitement caused by this 
rumour was short lived, however, as the officials decided to 
cross the mountains by the Kicking Horse Pass farther 
south. It was not until 1891, or almost ten years later, 
that the Canadian Pacific built a branch line to Strathcona, 
just across the river. A year later Edmonton was incor¬ 
porated as a town, and in 1898 its growth was greatly 
198 



Four fifths of the coal reserves in the Dominion are in Alberta. In 
addition to the big producing mines, there are many “country banks,” 
where the settlers can come and dig out the coal for themselves. 





Throughout central Alberta are many dairies that supply the cream¬ 
eries of Edmonton and other towns. Butter is sent from here to the 
Northwest and Yukon territories, and is even shipped to England by way 
of the Panama Canal. 





EDMONTON—GATEWAY TO NORTHWEST 

stimulated by its importance as an outfitting post for the 
thousands of gold seekers who made their way to the 
Klondike by the overland route. 

In 1904, when its population was ten thousand, 
Edmonton became a city and the capital of Alberta. 
It was then a typical frontier town of the New West. Its 
main thoroughfare was a crooked street laid out along 
an old Indian trail, and its buildings were of all shapes, 
heights, and materials. The older structures were wooden 
and of one story, the newer ones of brick and stone and 
often four stories high. The town was growing rapidly and 
the price of business property was soon out of sight. 
A fifty-foot lot on Main Street sold for twenty thousand 
dollars, and there was a demand for land in the business 
section at four and five hundred dollars per front foot. 

That year the Canadian Northern transcontinental line 
reached Edmonton, and four years later the Grand Trunk 
Pacific was put through. In 1913 the Canadian Pacific 
completed the bridge uniting the northern part of the 
city with its former terminus across the river at Strath- 
cona, which had been made a part of Edmonton the year 
before. In addition to these three transcontinental lines, 
Edmonton now has railway connection with every part 
of central and southern Alberta, as well as a road built 
northwesterly along the Lesser Slave Lake to the Peace 
River district. The trains run over that route twice a 
week; they are equipped with sleeping cars and a diner 
for most of the way. 

The location of Edmonton is much like that of St. 
Louis. The city is on a large river in the midst of a 
farming region almost as rich as the Mississippi Valley. 
It is in the northern part of the wheat belt, and the sur- 
199 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


rounding country is adapted to mixed farming as well as 
wheat growing. It produces enormous crops of oats, 
barley, and timothy. I have seen wheat near here so tall 
that it almost tickled my chin, and oats and timothy as 
high as my head. The land will raise from seventy- 
five to a hundred and twenty-five bushels of oats to the 
acre, and an average of forty bushels of winter wheat. 
The farmers are now growing barley for hogs; they say 
that barley-fed pork is better than corn-fed pork. They 
also feed wheat to cattle and sheep. Indeed, when I was 
at Fort William I was told that thousands of sheep are 
fattened there each winter on the elevator screenings. 

I am surprised at the climate of Edmonton. For most 
of the winter it is as mild as that of our central states. 
The weather is tempered by the Japanese current, just as 
western Europe is affected by the Gulf Stream. The warm 
winds that blow over the Rockies keep British Columbia 
green the year round and take the edge off the cold at 
Edmonton and Calgary. 

Edmonton is an important coal centre, with thirty 
mines in its vicinity. Indeed, Alberta’s coal deposits are 
estimated to contain 1,000,000,000,000 tons, which is 
one seventh of the total supply of the world. It is eighty 
per cent, of Canada’s coal reserves. Coal is found 
throughout about half of the province from the United 
States boundary to the Peace River, and is mined at the 
rate of about five million tons a year. Half of the product 
is lignite, about two per cent, anthracite, and the remainder 
bituminous. Nova Scotia is a close second in the coal 
production of the Dominion, and British Columbia ranks 
third. 

Because of the long haul across the prairies, Alberta coal 


200 


EDMONTON—GATEWAY TO NORTHWEST 

cannot compete in eastern Canada with that from the 
United States. Even the mines of Nova Scotia are far¬ 
ther from Canada's industrial centres than is our Appa¬ 
lachian coal region. Cape Breton is more than a thousand 
miles from Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, and about two 
thousand miles from Winnipeg. Scranton, Pennsylvania, 
on the other hand, is only four hundred miles from Toronto, 
and Pittsburgh but three hundred and sixty-seven. Con¬ 
sequently, Alberta coal supplies little more than the local 
demand. 

Of the three hundred mines in operation, only about 
seventy are important. Many of the others, some 
operated by only one man, are known as “country banks.” 
In these the coal is dug out by the farmers, who often drive 
thirty miles or more to one of the “banks.” At some 
places bunk houses and stables have been erected to pro¬ 
vide shelter for settlers who cannot make the round trip 
in one day. 

Alberta ranks next to Ontario in the production of 
natural gas, which is found chiefly about Medicine Hat 
and in the Viking field, which supplies Edmonton. 
Oil in small quantities is produced south of Calgary, and 
new wells are being drilled in the southeastern part of the 
province near the Saskatchewan border, and even north 
of Peace River. 

The Peace River Valley, the southernmost part of which 
is four hundred miles above Montana, is the northern 
frontier of Alberta. It has been opened up largely within 
the last ten years. Across the British Columbia line, part 
of the valley has been set aside as the Peace River Block, 
where the settlement is controlled by the Dominion 
government. 

201 ^ 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


The basin of the Peace River consists of a vast region 
of level or rolling land, much of which is thickly wooded 
with fir, spruce, pine, tamarack, and birch. The forests 
are full of moose, deer, and bear, and the beaver, lynx, 
marten, and muskrat are trapped for their furs. There are 
vast stretches of rich black loam that produce annually 
about a million bushels of wheat, three or four million 
bushels of oats, and almost a million bushels of barley. 
Considering the latitude, the winter climate is moderate, 
and in summer there is almost continual daylight for the 
space of three months. 

This district is dotted with settlements along the route 
of the railway from Edmonton. It has telephone and 
telegraph connections with southern Alberta, and a half 
dozen weekly newspapers are published in its various towns. 
There are all together a hundred or more schools. The 
largest settlement is Grande Prairie, near the British 
Columbia border, but the oldest is the town of Peace River, 
which lies in a thickly wooded region on the banks of the 
Peace. It is two hundred and fifty miles northwest of 
Edmonton. The trip, which was formerly over a wagon 
trail and took two or three weeks, can now be made by rail 
in twenty-six hours. 

Steamboats ply up and down Peace River for hundreds 
of miles, the route downstream to Fort Smith being 
used by many trappers and prospectors bound for the far 
Northwest. The trip takes one past the historic old post 
of Fort Vermilion, two hundred and fifty miles beyond 
Peace River town. To the northeast of Vermilion is said 
to be a herd of wood buffalo, probably the last of their 
species roaming wild. 

A shorter route from Edmonton to the Northwest, and 
202 


EDMONTON—GATEWAY TO NORTHWEST 

one that has grown in popularity since oil has been found 
along the Mackenzie, is down the Athabaska River, 
through Great Slave Lake, and down the Mackenzie to 
Fort Norman, the trading post for the oil region. 

Let us imagine ourselves taking a trip over this route, 
which penetrates to the very heart of the Northwest Ter¬ 
ritories. The train leaves Edmonton only once a week. 
It usually starts Tuesday morning, and we should reach 
“ End of Steel,” on the bank of the Clearwater River, the 
following day. Here we take one of the little motor boats 
that push along the freight scows carrying supplies to 
the trading posts during the open season, and chug 
down that stream for twenty miles to its junction with the 
Athabaska at Fort McMurray. 

At Fort McMurray we take a steamer and go down the 
Athabaska and across the. lake of that name. The river 
loses its identity when it empties into the lake, the river 
that joins Lake Athabaska and Great Slave Lake being 
known as the Slave. The latter stream at times flows 
through land soaked in oil. This “tar sand,” as it is 
called, has been used as paving material in Edmonton, 
and is said to have outlasted asphalt. It is probable that 
when better transportation facilities are available it will be 
commercially valuable. 

Just before reaching Fort Smith, halfway between Lake 
Athabaska and Great Slave Lake, we leave our boat and 
ride in wagons over a portage of fifteen miles. Fort Smith 
is just across the Alberta boundary. It is the capital 
of the Northwest Territories. Here the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police is all-powerful, and it must be satisfied 
that the traveller going farther north has food and other 
essentials sufficient for his trip. In this land, where sup- 
203 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


plies are brought in only once a year, no chances are taken 
on allowing inexperienced prospectors to become public 
burdens. 

Two hundred miles north of Fort Smith we reach Great 
Slave Lake, the fourth largest inland body of water on the 
North American continent. It is almost three hundred 
miles long, and the delta that is being pushed out at 
the mouth of the Slave River may some day divide the 
lake into two parts. Great Slave Lake is drained by the 
mighty Mackenzie, down which we float on the last lap of 
our journey. This river is as long as the Missouri, and car¬ 
ries a much larger volume of water. It is like the mighty 
waterways of Siberia. 

We are several days going down the Mackenzie to Fort 
Norman. Fifty-four miles north of here, and only sixty 
miles south of the arctic circle, is the first producing oil 
well in the Northwest Territories. The well was the 
cause of a miniature “oil rush” to this land that is frozen 
for nine months of the year. At this time no one knows 
how much oil there is here. The region may never be 
of any greater importance than it is now, or it may be 
another mighty oil field such as those in Oklahoma and 
Texas. But even if oil is found in paying quantities it 
will be many years before its exploitation will be com¬ 
mercially profitable. The nearest railway is twelve hun¬ 
dred miles away, and the river boats are of such shallow 
draft that they cannot carry heavy freight. A pipe line to 
Prince Rupert or Vancouver would mean an expenditure of 
almost one hundred million dollars, and to make such a 
line pay it would be necessary to produce thirty thousand 
barrels of oil daily. 

In the meantime, prospectors have come in from at 
204 


EDMONTON—GATEWAY TO NORTHWEST 


directions, travelling overland as well as by river. One 
man made the fifteen-hundred-mile trip from Edmonton 
with a dog team, and others have mushed their way over 
the mountains from the Klondike. Two aviators of the 
Imperial Oil Company attempted to fly to Fort Norman. 
They were obliged to land several hundred miles to the 
south and both planes were smashed. However, by using 
the undamaged parts of one plane they were able to repair 
the other, except for a propeller. They finally collected 
a pile of sled runners from a near-by trading post, stuck 
them together with glue made by boiling down a moose 
hide, and with a hunting knife carved out a pair of pro¬ 
pellers that enabled them to fly back the eight hundred 
miles to Peace River. 

On every hand I hear stories of how the vast Canadian 
Northwest is being opened up. Edmonton is at the gate¬ 
way to the valleys of the Peace, the Athabaska, and the 
Mackenzie rivers, and each year sees more settlers pene¬ 
trating the remote areas that once knew the white man 
only through the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
Arthur Conan Doyle has caught the spirit of this new 
Northwest in his “Athabaska Trail": 

I’ll dream again of fields of grain that stretch from sky to sky. 
And the little prairie hamlets where the cars go roaring by. 

Wooden hamlets as I saw them—noble cities still to be- 

To girdle stately Canada with gems from sea to sea. 

He * * * * * * 

I shall hear the roar of waters where the rapids foam and tear; 

I shall smell the virgin upland with its balsam-laden air, 

And shall dream that I am riding down the winding woody vale. 
With the packer and the pack horse on the Athabaska Trail. 


205 



CHAPTER XXVII 


THE PASSING OF THE CATTLE RANGE 

T HE story of southern Alberta is the story of the 
passing of Canada's great cattle ranches, the re¬ 
clamation of millions of acres of dry land by irri¬ 
gation, and the growth of general farming where 
once the open range stretched for hundreds of miles. 

From Calgary I have ridden out to visit the mighty 
irrigation works of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This 
corporation has taken over three million acres, or a block 
of land forty miles wide and extending from Calgary one 
hundred and forty miles eastward. It is divided into 
three sections. The central division gets its water from 
the Saint Mary’s River, and the east and west divisions 
from the Bow River, which does not depend upon the rain¬ 
fall for its volume, being fed by the snows and glaciers of 
the Rockies. 

At Bassano, about eighty miles from Calgary, is the 
great Horseshoe Bend dam, where the level of the Bow has 
been raised forty feet. The dam is eight thousand feet 
long, with a spillway of seven hundred and twenty feet. 
From it the water flows out through twenty-five hundred 
miles of irrigation canals and ditches. This dam has 
been the means by which the semi-arid lands of southern 
Alberta, formerly good only for cattle grazing, have been 
turned into thousands of farms, raising wheat, alfalfa, and 
corn, as well as fruits and vegetables. 

206 



The dam at Bassano is the second largest in the world, being exceeded 
in size only by the one at Aswan, which holds back the waters of the Nile. 
The water stored here flows out through 2,500 miles of irrigation canals 
and ditches. 











The riproaring cowboy with his bucking bronco was a familiar figure 
of the old Alberta, but with the passing of the “Wild West” he is now 
rarely seen except in exhibitions known as “stampedes.” 







Among the ranch owners of the Alberta foothills is no less a personage 
than the Prince of Wales, who occasionally visits his property and rides 
herd on his cattle. 






PASSING OF THE CATTLE RANGE 


The ranching industry of Alberta was at its height 
during the thirty years from 1870 to 1900. With the 
disappearance of buffalo from the Canadian plains, cattle 
men from the United States began bringing their herds 
over the border to the grazing lands east of the foothills of 
the Rockies. The luxuriant prairie grass provided ex¬ 
cellent forage, and the warm Chinook winds kept the win¬ 
ters so mild that the cattle could feed out-of-doors the 
year round. When the high ground was covered with 
snow, there were always river bottoms and hollows to 
furnish shelter and feed. 

The United States cattle men were followed by Cana¬ 
dians and Britishers. One of the first big ranch holders 
was Senator Cochrane of Montreal. He owned sixty- 
seven thousand acres, and most of it cost him only a 
dollar an acre. There were other immense holdings, and 
the grazing industry continued to grow until it extended 
into southwestern Saskatchewan and included horses and 
sheep as well as cattle. 

Then the homesteaders began to take up their claims. 
In 1902 the first tract of land for irrigation purposes was 
bought from the government by the Alberta Railway and 
Irrigation Company, and in 1903 the Canadian Pacific 
Railway’s big irrigation project was begun. In May of 
the same year there occurred one of the severest snow 
storms in the history of the plains. It lasted for a week, 
and fully half the range cattle in what was then Alberta 
territory perished. The introduction of wire fences dealt 
another hard blow to cattle ranching. Large herds can 
be run all the year round only on an open range. 

There are still a few big stock men in Alberta, but they 
have been crowded into the foothills west of the old orig- 
207 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


inal “cow” country. Small herds pasture on the open 
range also in the Peace River district. As a matter of fact, 
Alberta still leads the Dominion in the production of beef 
and breeding cattle. It has as much livestock as ever, 
each mixed farm having at least a few head. There are a 
half million dairy cattle in the province. 

Most of the stock raised to-day is pure bred. There 
are cattle sales at Calgary every year as big as any in 
the United States. The favourite animal is the Short¬ 
horn, but there are many Polled Angus and Galloways. 
The best breeding animals come from England, and there 
are some ranchmen who make a specialty of raising choice 
beef for the English market. Within the last ten years 
the cattle in Alberta have tripled in number, and their total 
value is now in the neighbourhood of one hundred and 
twenty-five million dollars. 

On my way from Edmonton to Calgary I passed through 
the famous dairying region of Alberta. The cheese in¬ 
dustry is still in its infancy, but the province makes more 
than enough butter each year to spread a slice of bread for 
every man, woman, and child in the United States. It 
supplies butter for the Yukon and Northwest Territories, 
and is now shipping it to England via Vancouver and the 
Panama Canal. 

Sheep can exist on poorer pasture than cattle, and some 
large flocks are still ranged in the higher foothills of 
southern Alberta. They are chiefly Merinos that have 
been brought in from Montana. On the small farms the 
homesteaders often raise the medium-fleeced English 
breeds, such as Shropshires, Hampshires, and Southdowns. 
Some of the ranchers are experimenting in raising the 
karakul sheep, a native of Central Asia, whose curly 
208 


PASSING OF THE CATTLE RANGE 

black pelts are so highly prized for fur coats and 
wraps. 

Horse raising was another big industry of early Alberta. 
The bronco is now almost extinct, and almost the only 
light-weight horse now reared is a high-bred animal valua¬ 
ble chiefly as a polo pony. In Alberta, as elsewhere in the 
Dominion and in the United States, the motor car has 
taken the place of the horse as a means of transportation, 
and nine tenths of the animals in the province to-day are 
of the heavy Clydesdale or Percheron types, and used 
solely for farm work. 

I have gone through Calgary’s several meat packing 
houses, and have visited its thirteen grain elevators, 
which all together can hold four million bushels of wheat. 
Calgary ranks next to Montreal and the twin ports of Fort 
William and Port Arthur in its grain storage capacity. 
It is surrounded by thousands of acres of wheat lands, not 
in vast stretches such as we saw in Saskatchewan, but 
divided up among the general farming lands of the prov¬ 
ince. The city is an important industrial centre, and in 
some of its factories natural gas, piped from wells a hun¬ 
dred miles away, is used to produce power. 

Calgary is less than fifty years old. Nevertheless, it has 
sky-scrapers, fine public buildings, and wide streets and 
boulevards. Many of the business buildings are of the 
light gray sandstone found near by, and nearly every 
residence is surrounded by grounds. The city lies along 
the Bow and Elbow rivers, and the chief residential section 
on the heights above these streams has magnificent views 
of the peaks of the Rockies, one hundred miles distant. 

Like many of the big cities of Western Canada, Calgary 
began as a fort of the Mounted Police. That was in 1874. 

209 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Its real growth dates from August, 1883, when the first 
train of the main line of the Canadian Pacific pulled into 
the town. Before that time much of the freight for the 
ranch lands came farther south through Macleod, which, 
the old-timers tell me, was the real “cow town ” of southern 
Alberta. Goods were brought up the Missouri River to 
the head of navigation at Benton, Montana, and thence 
carried overland to Macleod in covered wagons drawn by 
horse, ox, or mule teams. 

The cattle town of Calgary is now a matter of history, 
and the old cattle men who rode the western plains when 
Alberta was a wilderness have nearly all passed away. 
Indeed, it is hard to believe that this up-to-date place is 
the frontier town I found here some years ago. Then 
cowboys galloped through the streets, and fine-looking 
Englishmen in riding clothes played polo on the outskirts. 
The Ranchers' Club of that day was composed largely of 
the sons of wealthy British families. Many of them were 
remittance men who had come out here to make their 
fortunes and grow up with the country. Some came be¬ 
cause they were ne’er-do-wells or their families did not 
want them at home, and others because they liked the wild 
life of the prairies. They received a certain amount of 
money every month or every quarter, most of which was 
spent in drinking and carousing. The son of an English 
lord, for instance, could be seen almost any day hanging 
over the bar, and another boy who had ducal blood in his 
veins would cheerfully borrow a quarter of you in the lean 
•times just before remittance day. 

Others of these men brought money with them to invest. 
One of them, the son of Admiral Cochrane of the British 
navy, owned a big ranch near Calgary on which he kept 
210 



Calgary, chief city of the prairie province of Alberta, is less than fifty 
years old. Beginning as a fur-trading and police post, it now has sky¬ 
scrapers and palatial homes. 
















At Macleod, in southern Alberta, the headquarters of the Mounted 
Police are in the centre of an important live-stock region, where, in the 
early days of open ranges, cattle thieves were a constant menace. 









PASSING OF THE CATTLE RANGE 

six thousand of the wildest Canadian cattle. Every year 
or so he brought in a new instalment of bulls from Scot¬ 
land, giving his agents at home instructions to send him 
the fiercest animals they could secure. When asked why 
he did this, he replied: 

“You see, I have to pay my cowboys so much a month, 
and I want to raise stock that will make them earn their 
wages. Besides, it adds to the life of the ranch.” 

“ 1 went out once to see Billy Cochrane,” said a Calgary 
banker to me. “When 1 arrived at the ranch I found him 
seated on the fence of one of his corrals watching a fight 
between two bulls. As he saw me he told me to hurry and 
have a look. I climbed up beside him, and as I watched 
the struggle going on beneath, I said: ‘Why, Billy, if you 
do not separate those bulls one will soon kill the other/ 
‘Let them kill/ was the reply. ‘This is the real thing. It 
is better than any Spanish bull fight, and I would give a 
bull any day for the show/ 

“We watched the struggle for more than an hour, 
Cochrane clapping his hands and urging the animals on to 
battle. Finally one drove his horns into the side of the 
other and killed it. To my protest against this wanton 
waste of valuable live stock, Cochrane replied: ‘Oh! it 
doesn’t matter at all. We must have some fun/” 

Another famous character of old-time Calgary was 
Dickie Bright, the grandson of the man after whom 
Bright’s disease was named. Dickie had been supplied 
with money by his grandfather and sent out. He invested 
it all in a ranch and then asked for a large remittance from 
time to time to increase his herds. He sent home florid 
stories of the money he was making and how he was fast 
becoming a cattle king. Shortly after writing one of his 
211 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


most enthusiastic letters he received a dispatch from New 
York saying that his grandfather had just arrived and 
was coming out to see him. The boy was in a quandary. 
He had spent his remittance in riotous living and he had no 
cattle. Adjoining him, however, was one of the largest 
ranch owners of the West. Dickie confided his trouble to 
this man and persuaded him to lend a thousand head of his 
best stock for one night. 

“Granddad can stay but a day,” said he, “and I will 
see that they are driven back to you the next morning.” 

The rancher was something of a sportsman himself, 
and he finally consented to help the boy. The cattle were 
sent over. Old Doctor Bright duly arrived and was driven 
out to the herd, which Dickie said was only a sample of 
his stock that had been brought in to be shown to his 
visitor. The boy added, however, that it was not good to 
keep the cattle penned up, and that they must go back 
upon the range right away. The old doctor was delighted, 
and before he left he gave Dickie a check for ten thousand 
dollars to develop the business. 

Another young remittance man added to his income by 
pretending to have a gopher farm. His father had never 
heard the word “gopher” before, and supposed that the 
tiny ground squirrels were some kind of valuable live stock. 
He was, therefore, quite pleased when his boy wrote an 
enthusiastic letter saying that he had now seven hundred 
blooded gophers on his range. When sonny added that 
the animals were in good condition, but that it would take 
a thousand dollars more to carry them through the winter 
for the market next spring, father sent on the money. 


212 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 


O VER the Great Divide and across the mighty 
ranges of the Rockies! 

Hundreds of miles between ice-clad peaks 
and over snow-covered plains! 

Up and down the ragged passes of towering mountains, 
their heads capped with blue glaciers, and their faces 
rough with beards of frosty pines! 

For the last week I have been travelling across the 
western highland of Canada. I have gone over the back¬ 
bone of the continent, which reaches north to Alaska and 
south to the Strait of Magellan. Here in Canada the 
Rockies extend in three ranges from western Alberta 
throughout the entire width of British Columbia. The 
easternmost marks a part of the boundary line between the 
provinces and the westernmost range rises steeply from 
the Pacific Ocean. All between is high plateaus and 
broken mountain chains spotted with glaciers. 

This vast sea of mountains is said to be the equal of 
twenty-four Switzerlands, and I can well believe it. It 
is only five hours by rail across the Swiss Alps from Lucerne 
to Como, but the fastest Canadian Pacific trains cannot 
make the trip from Cochrane, Alberta, to Vancouver in less 
than twenty-three hours. Switzerland is noted the world 
over for its glaciers, yet here in the Selkirk range alone there 
are as many glaciers as in all the Alps thrown together. 
213 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

I have visited the great mountain regions of the world. 
I have stood on the hills of Darjiling and watched the sun 
rise on Mount Everest. From the tops of the Andes, 
three miles above the level of the sea, I have taken a hair- 
raising ride in a hand-car down to the Pacific. 1 have 
looked into the sulphurous crater of old Popocatepetl, and 
I have stood among the Alpine glaciers on the top of the 
Jungfrau. But nowhere have I found Mother Nature 
more lavish in scenes of rugged grandeur than right here in 
Canada not far from our own northern boundary. 

The mountains change at every turn of the wheels of 
our train. Now they rise almost straight up on both sides 
of the track for hundreds upon hundreds of feet. They 
shut out the sun and their tops touch the sky. Now we 
shoot out into the open, and there is a long vista of jagged 
hills rising one above the other until they fade away into 
the peaks on the horizon. We ride for miles where there 
is no sign of the works of man except the gleaming track, 
the snow sheds here and there, and the little mountain 
stations, where the shriek of our engine reverberates and 
echoes throughout the valley. 

Each mile we cover seems to bring a new wonder. It 
may be a majestic waterfall, a towering peak, an over¬ 
hanging cliff, a glacier sparkling under the rays of the 
winter sun, or a vast panorama of glittering snow and ice 
standing out in bold contrast against the dark rocks and 
forests. It takes my breath away, and I think of the 
Texas cowboy who had made his pile and had started out 
to see the world. His life had been spent on the plains, 
and at his first visit to these Canadian mountains their 
grandeur so filled his soul that, unable to contain himself, 
he threw his hat into the air and yelled: 

214 



In a region of beautiful lakes, the “Lake of the Hanging Glaciers” is 
one of the most picturesque in the Canadian Rockies. Behind it towers 
the snowy crest of Mount Sir Donald, some two miles high. 





Wainwright National Park has the largest herd of buffalo in America. 
More than five thousand animals, the descendants of a herd of seven 
hundred originally purchased from a Montana rancher, range over a 
fenced-in reserve of one hundred thousand acres. 




OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 


“Hurrah for God!” 

One gets his first view of the mountains at Calgary. 
As we travelled through the foothills our train climbed 
steadily, and at Banff, eighty miles to the west, we had 
reached a height of almost a mile above sea level. The 
region about Banff has been set aside by the government 
as Rocky Mountain Park. It is known as the Yosemite 
Valley of the North, and has become the finest mountain 
resort of Canada. Here the Canadian Pacific Railway has 
built a magnificent hotel. It stands high above the con¬ 
fluence of the Bow and Spray rivers and affords a splendid 
view of Mount Assiniboine. 

In summer the attractions at Banff include hot sulphur 
baths, open-air swimming pools, tennis courts, and golf 
links, and in winter there are snow carnivals and ski- 
jumping contests. The surrounding country offers moun¬ 
tain climbing of all kinds, from easy slopes for the in¬ 
experienced tenderfoot to almost inaccessible peaks that 
challenge the skill of the most expert climber. The region 
outside the park limits contains some of the finest game 
lands on the continent, and is a Mecca for the fisherman 
and the hunter. 

In addition to the railway, Banff is reached by a ninety- 
mile motor road from Calgary. In 1923 this road was 
extended southwesterly across the Vermilion Pass to 
Lake Windermere in British Columbia. The construction 
of that stretch completed the last link in the “circle tour” 
motor route that now runs from Lake Windermere via 
Seattle to southern California, thence through the Grand 
Canyon and Yellowstone and Glacier National parks, and 
back to the Canadian boundary. 

Thirty miles west of Banff, and almost six thousand 
215 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

feet above the level of the sea, is the gem-like Lake Louise 
in its setting of dark forests and snow-clad mountains, and 
not far away is the famous Valley of the Ten Peaks. A 
few miles farther on we reach the Great Divide, which 
marks the boundary between Alberta and British Colum¬ 
bia. Here we see the waters of a single stream divide, one 
part going west to the Pacific and the other flowing to the 
east and eventually losing itself in Hudson Bay. 

Between Calgary and the Great Divide the railway track 
climbs three eighths of a mile. It goes over the main 
range through the Kicking Horse Pass, more than a mile 
above sea level, and then drops down to the valley of the 
Columbia River. It rises again a quarter of a mile where 
it crosses the Selkirks through the five-mile-long Con¬ 
naught tunnel, and then winds its way downward through 
the coast ranges to the great western ocean. 

The Kicking Horse Pass was so named from an incident 
that occurred when the surveyors for the railway were 
searching for a route over the mountains. At this point 
one of the men was kicked by a pack horse and apparently 
killed. His companions had even dug a grave for him, but 
just then the supposedly dead man showed signs of life. 
He soon was fully recovered and the party proceeded on¬ 
ward. Later, his curiosity led him to revisit the scene of 
his narrowly averted burial, and in so doing he discovered 
this gap in the mountains. 

The Kicking Horse was Canada's first, and for years 
its only, railway pass over the Rockies. The construction 
of the railway through it was considered a great feat of 
civil engineering, but it has been much improved. In 
1909 two spiral tunnels were built for the descent to the 
Kicking Horse River, twelve hundred feet below. Here 
216 


OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 


the track, sloping downward, makes two almost complete 
circles inside the mountain, and the tunnels have so cut 
down the steep grade that the number of engines re¬ 
quired for a train has been reduced from four to two. 

Another line of the Canadian Pacific climbs over the 
mountains through the Crow’s Nest Pass, not far north of 
the United States boundary. A third gateway to the 
ocean is the Yellowhead Pass, west of Edmonton, by which 
the Canadian National lines cross the Rockies. Be¬ 
yond that pass the tracks branch out, one section ending 
at Prince Rupert and the other at Vancouver. The Yel¬ 
lowhead, though the lowest of the three passes, is under 
the very shadow of some of the loftiest of these mountains. 
Near it is Mount Robson, the highest peak in Canada, 
which rises in a mighty cone almost two miles above the 
surrounding range and more than thirteen thousand feet 
above the sea. 

The Yellowhead route passes through Jasper Park, the 
greatest of Canada’s western game and forest reserves. 
That park is almost four times the size of Rhode Island, 
and much larger than Rocky Mountain Park, which we saw 
at Banff. It contains the beautiful Lac Beauvert, on the 
shores of which a hotel and several lodges are operated by 
the Canadian National Railways. Mount Robson Park ad¬ 
joins Jasper Park at the west, and farther south are Yoko, 
Waterton Lakes, and other great national playgrounds. 

One of the most interesting of Canada’s twelve Domin¬ 
ion parks is that at Wainwright, Alberta. I saw some¬ 
thing of it on my way from Saskatoon to Edmonton. 
There a hundred thousand acres of land is fenced in as a 
reserve for the largest herd of buffalo in America. The 
seven hundred and six animals of the original herd were 
217 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


purchased by the Canadian government from a Montana 
rancher. That was less than twenty years ago, but the 
herd increased so rapidly that it soon numbered between 
seven and eight thousand. This was more than could be 
provided for on the ranging grounds of the park, and it was 
found necessary to slaughter two thousand of the animals. 
Some of the meat was sold as buffalo steak, and the rest 
was dried and made into pemmican for the arctic regions. 
An animal called the cattalo, a cross between buffaloes 
and domestic cattle, which is noted for its beef qualities, 
has been raised in large numbers at the Wainwright Park. 

When a transcontinental railway to the Pacific coast 
was first proposed, the objectors to the project sarcasti¬ 
cally called British Columbia and western Alberta a “sea 
of mountains/’ To-day these same mountains, once con¬ 
sidered merely an expensive barrier in the path of the rail¬ 
ways, have proved to be one of the largest factors in build¬ 
ing up what is said to be the fourth industry of Canada— 
its tourist traffic. The business of “selling the scenery” 
has been developed to such a degree that it is estimated 
that the national parks of the Dominion yield an annual 
revenue of twenty-five million dollars. In a year, more 
than one hundred thousand people travel over the C. P. R. 
route alone. It is interesting to note that eighty per cent, 
of them are Americans, and that there are more from New 
York City than from the entire Dominion of Canada. 

The Canadian Pacific has for years led in exploiting the 
scenic wonders of Canada. It carries tourists over the 
mountains in summer in open observation cars, and adds 
to their comfort by using oil-burning locomotives on its 
passenger trains. It has a half dozen resorts in the 
Rockies where one may enjoy all the comforts of a modern 
218 


OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE 


city hotel or the rugged pleasures of a wilderness camp. 
It has established a colony of Swiss mountaineers brought 
from the Alps to act as guides for mountain climbers. It 
has cut new trails through the country and has sent out 
geologists to map the unexplored territory. 

Even the names of scores of peaks and valleys originated 
with the Canadian Pacific. Mount Sir Donald, one of the 
mightiest of the Selkirks, was so called in honour of Lord 
Strathcona, who was a power behind the building of the 
railway, and who drove the final spike uniting the east and 
west sections of the transcontinental line. Mount Stephen 
was named after the first president, and Mount Shaugh- 
nessy after a later one. The Van Horne Glacier in the 
Selkirks and the Van Horn Range have the same name as 
the famous builder of the Canadian Pacific, and Mount 
Hector was named after the intrepid explorer who dis¬ 
covered the Kicking Horse Pass. 

Indeed, that railway has become so great a booster of 
the Dominion’s natural show places that it has even been 
given credit for supplementing nature in the matter of 
scenery. The story is told of a woman who had just had 
her first view of the mighty crystal mass of the Illecille- 
waet Glacier towering thousands of feet above the rail¬ 
way. She stared in open-eyed and incredulous wonder. 
Then she exclaimed: 

"It ain’t real! The Canadian Pacific put it there for 
advertising!” 


219 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THROUGH BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE COAST 

B RITISH COLUMBIA is the third largest prov¬ 
ince of the Dominion of Canada. It has an 
area as great as that of France, Italy, Belgium, 
and Holland combined. It extends from the 
United States boundary to Yukon Territory and Alaska, 
and, except for the northeastern section, it is all plateaus 
and mountains and valleys. The interior table-lands 
have an average elevation of three thousand feet. They 
contain some good farms and dairies, but the chief wealth 
of the province is in its forests, fisheries, and mines. 

I have crossed this great territory often on my way west¬ 
ward, and have at times gone southward from Golden into 
the Kootenay country. This is far below the main line of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway. Another line of the Ca¬ 
nadian Pacific crosses the region from the Crow’s Nest 
Pass. 

In the mighty hills of the Kootenays I saw the head¬ 
waters of the Columbia River. Its source is only a few 
hundred feet from the Kootenay River, which at this point 
is a good-sized stream. The Columbia flows north for one 
hundred and eighty miles, and then makes a sharp bend 
and turns to the south. The two rivers meet after each 
has completed about four hundred miles of its course, the 
parent stream of the Columbia crossing the United States 
border to the Pacific. Before meeting, the two rivers 


220 


BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE COAST 


wind in and out among the hills, now in narrow streams, 
and now in long, winding lakes that make one think of 
Como and Maggiore on the borders of Switzerland and 
Italy. They are walled in by peaks that rise almost 
straight up for hundreds of feet. Their waters are so 
clear that one can stand on the slopes high above them 
and see the fish swimming in the streams far below. The 
sides of the hills are covered with fir and tamarack, and 
their tops are often capped with snow. 

The Columbia and the Kootenay, by their circling 
courses, have made a mighty island in the interior of 
British Columbia. If you will imagine two gigantic wish 
bones, the tips of which are touching each other, enclosing 
a diamond of mountainous land larger than the state of 
Ohio, you will have an idea of the curious formation that 
Nature has created here. A short canal that connects 
the two rivers near the headwaters of the Columbia makes 
the island complete. The valleys of these two streams, 
containing a million acres or so, are growing in importance 
as a mixed farming, fruit growing, and dairying region. 

The Kootenay country has also some of the richest 
mineral deposits of the Rockies. It has gold, silver, cop¬ 
per, coal, iron, and lead. The coal deposits near the 
Crow’s Nest Pass are said to contain thousands of millions 
of tons, and near them are thousands of coke ovens blazing 
away. Not far distant are deposits of hematite ore, upon 
which the Canadians may some day build up a big iron 
and steel industry. 

Coming farther on into British Columbia, I took a 
steamer through Kootenay Lake and stopped at the town 
of Nelson, which is in the heart of the mining country. 
There I talked with one of the men who opened up some 


221 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


of the big silver and lead deposits more than two score 
years ago. Said he: 

“There had been a rush to this region,and I came in with 
five other prospectors. When we got to the camp 1 sug¬ 
gested that our party see what we could find in a mountain 
across the valley. We set out with only two days’ provi¬ 
sions. Almost as soon as we started up the hill we struck 
some float rock that showed signs of silver and lead, and 
on the following day we discovered a great mass of 
galena, which was from twenty-five to thirty feet wide. 
There were boulders of lead ore close by, and we at once 
staked out our mine. It proved to be a rich one, and was 
eventually sold for more than a million dollars.” 

This whole region is a treasure house of minerals. Min¬ 
ing operations were carried on for years near Phoenix 
in one of the biggest copper beds of the world. The 
metal lay in a great mass two hundred feet wide and more 
than a half mile in length. 

The millions of tons of ore taken from the Phoenix mines 
were fed into the smelter at Grand Forks, which stands 
on the banks of the Kettle River, shadowed by mighty 
mountains. For years it annually produced millions of 
pounds of copper, and in addition silver and gold worth a 
million dollars or more. The smelter was closed in 1919 
with a record of having smelted fourteen million tons of 
ore, and the mines ceased operations that same year. 

In the meantime, the Granby Company, which owned 
the mines and the smelter, had begun to take copper out 
of the Le Roi mine at Rossland, a few miles to the east. 
Shafts there have been sunk more than two thousand feet 
into the earth, and there are about ninety miles of under¬ 
ground workings. This same company, which is owned 


222 



The Canadian Rockies, with three hundred peaks more than ten 
thousand feet high, offer thrills aplenty for even the most seasoned moun¬ 
tain climber. Alpine guides have been brought here from Switzerland 
and have established a colony in British Columbia. 






The line of the Canadian National Railways through Yellowhead 
Pass, the lowest gap in the Canadian Rockies, lies near Mt. Robson, 
13,068 feet high, and the tallest peak in all the Dominion. 




BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE COAST 

largely by American stockholders, operates the Hidden 
Creek copper mines at Anyox, the biggest in British Co¬ 
lumbia. They are located on the coast near the Portland 
Canal, hundreds of miles to the northward and only a 
short distance from Alaska. In one year they produced 
thirty million pounds of copper. Other mines are worked 
on Vancouver Island and on Howe Sound north of the 
city of Vancouver. 

Although the deposits of the Boundary District have 
been practically worked out after yielding twenty million 
tons of copper ore, British Columbia still has more than 
half the copper output of the Dominion. Its total an¬ 
nual mineral production is worth more than six hundred 
million dollars. Of this, coal and coke make up about one 
third. Silver, lead, zinc, and platinum are also mined. 

Gold was first discovered in British Columbia on the 
Fraser River. That was around 1857, just as the Cali¬ 
fornia placers had begun to play out, and thousands of 
prospectors rushed here from our Pacific coast. Many 
fortunes were made in a single season, and by 1863 the 
placer mines had an annual yield of more than three 
million dollars’ worth of gold. The total production to 
the present time has been valued at more than seventy- 
five million dollars. 

All of this gold was recovered by the pick and shovel 
and without the aid of machinery. Hydraulic mining 
was not introduced until the easily accessible gold had been 
washed out by primitive methods. The lode mines were 
not worked to any extent until 1893, but these are now 
producing more than the placers. 

Northwest of the Boundary District we take a flying 
trip through the Okanagan Valley, famous as a fruit-grow- 
223 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


ing region. Apples from here are shipped all over the 
Dominion. They are sold three thousand miles away in 
eastern Canada in competition with those grown in the 
Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. The region has been 
developed largely through irrigation, and as we travel 
through it the green of the watered areas stands out in 
sharp contrast to the sun-baked dry lands of the hills. 
British Columbia has forty thousand acres in fruit, and it 
ships more than a million boxes of apples a season. The 
interior valleys have been found to be well adapted to rais¬ 
ing peaches, plums, grapes, and small fruits as well. 

The chief city of British Columbia, as well as Canada’s 
most important Pacific port, is Vancouver. It is beauti¬ 
fully situated on Burrard Inlet on a site discovered in 1792 
by Captain John Vancouver. In 1865 a lumber mill was 
started on the inlet and a settlement grew up here. About 
twenty years later the town was entirely destroyed by fire, 
so that the city of to-day was really founded in 1886. 

Vancouver is about the same size as Omaha, and is the 
fourth largest city of the Dominion. It is the terminal 
of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways, 
and of several roads from the States. It has steamship 
lines to Hawaii and China and Japan and also to the Philip¬ 
pines, Australia, and New Zealand. There are coast 
lines to Seattle, Victoria, Prince Rupert, and Alaska. 

Let us go for a motor ride about the city. The Vancou¬ 
ver climate is warmer and more moist than that of the 
south of England, and flowers can be seen blooming in the 
gardens all the year round. On Shaughnessy Heights are 
the beautiful homes of Vancouver’s millionaires, and far¬ 
ther out is Stanley Park. Here, overlooking the Narrows 
through which the ships enter the harbour, are thousands 
224 


BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE COAST 


of giant cedars and Douglas firs, some of them one hundred 
and fifty and two hundred feet high. 

We find Vancouver's commercial districts busy and 
crowded. At the wharves we see twenty ocean steamers 
loading lumber to be carried to all parts of the world, and 
learn that sixteen million feet are shipped from here in one 
month. Vancouver is increasing in importance as a 
wheat-shipping port. It sends a million bushels or more 
to the Orient, and twice as much to Europe by way of the 
Panama Canal. 

Eighty miles across the Strait of Georgia from Vancou¬ 
ver is Victoria, British Columbia's capital, noted for the 
architectural beauty of the provincial government build¬ 
ings. It lies at the southern end of Vancouver Island, 
overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the snow¬ 
capped Olympic Mountains on the mainland. It is 
considered one of the most English of Canadian cities, 
not only in climate and aspect, but in the customs and 
traditions of its residents. It is the site of the Dominion 
Astrophysical Observatory, one of the largest of its kind 
in the world. 


225 


CHAPTER XXX 


PRINCE RUPERT 

I AM at the north terminal of the Canadian National 
Railways and the port of the shortest Pacific route to 
the Orient. Prince Rupert is located on an island in a 
beautiful bay five hundred miles north of Vancouver 
and only thirty miles south of our Alaskan boundary. Its 
harbour is open all the year round. It is fourteen miles 
long, is sheltered by the mountains and islands about it, 
and large enough for all the demands of travel. The 
town reminds me of Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem. It is 
right on the sea, and the buildings climb up and down the 
mountains of rock close to the shore. The chief difference 
is that the hills of Jaffa are bleak and bare, while those 
of Prince Rupert are wooded and clad in perpetual green. 

Until 1912, when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, now 
a part of the Canadian National lines, chose this point for 
its western terminus, this place was a forest. Pines and 
cedars covered the mountains above, and the stumps still 
rising out of the vacant lots look like the black bristles 
of an unshaven chin. The town has several thousand 
people, and I venture it has thousands of stumps. They 
are rooted in the crevices of the rock, and the ground be¬ 
tween them is matted with muskeg, which holds water like 
a sponge and makes it impossible to go across country 
without thick boots or rubbers. 

The muskeg was one of the difficulties that had to be 
226 



Southern British Columbia is a land of winding rivers and lakes, tower¬ 
ing mountains and sheltered valleys. Many of the little cities along 
the Columbia and the Kootenay have been settled largely by Britishers. 




Apples from the irrigated orchards of the Pacific slope are sold in 
eastern Canada, three thousand miles away, in competition with the famous 
Nova Scotia fruit. British Columbia often ships a million boxes of 
apples a season. 



Victoria, in its appearance, its climate, and its people, is like a section 
of the south of England transplanted to Vancouver Island. It is noted 
for the beauty of its location and for its handsome provincial parlia¬ 
ment buildings. 




PRINCE RUPERT 


overcome in laying out and building the city. Another 
and still greater difficulty was blasting the hills. Every 
bit of the town is founded on bed rock, and many places 
have had to be levelled with dynamite for the business 
streets and foundations of buildings. The streets in the 
residential section are paved with three-inch planks. 
They look like continuous bridges, but they are substantial 
enough for heavy teams, motor trucks, and automobiles. 
In some places the planks are spiked to trestle-work from 
ten to fifteen feet high, and in others they lie on the rock. 
The steep hills that extend back to the wooded mountains 
behind Prince Rupert are so rough that to cut roads 
through them would bankrupt the city many times over. 

It was in company with a member of the board of trade 
and the civil engineer who laid out Prince Rupert that I 
took an automobile ride through the town. The plank 
roads are so narrow that turning-out places have been 
built at the cross streets and curves, and the inclines are 
so steep that we had all the sensations of a giant roller¬ 
coaster as we dashed uphill and down. I expected a 
collision every time another car passed. Now we shot 
around a curve where a slight skidding might have hurled 
us into a ravine; and now climbed a hill where the trestle- 
work trembled beneath us. We rode for some distance 
through “ Lovers' Lane,” a part of the ninety acres of 
forest in the public park, and later climbed the steep 
slope of Acropolis Hill. 

On top of Acropolis Hill we inspected the city’s water¬ 
works. The supply is carried to a reservoir here from 
Lake Woodworth, five miles away. The reservoir, which 
has been dug out of the rock, contains a million gallons of 
water more than the regular needs of the city. 

227 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


On another part of the hill are the municipal tennis 
courts and baseball park. The tennis courts are made 
by laying a level plank floor upon the uneven surface of 
the rocks, and erecting about it fences of wire netting so 
high that the balls cannot possibly fly over and roll down 
the steep slopes of the mountain. The ball park was 
blasted out of the rock. It is so situated that the hills 
about it form a natural grandstand, and consequently 
admission is free. The players are paid by passing the hat. 

We have a good view of Prince Rupert from Acropolis 
Hill. In front of us is the harbour, sparkling in the sun¬ 
light and backed by mountainous islands of green. Be¬ 
hind us are forest-clad hills, lost in the clouds, and below 
is the city, connected with the mainland by a great bridge 
of steel. The business section is made up of two- and 
three-story frame buildings, painted in modest colours. 
Here and there the spire of a church rises above the other 
roofs; and should you take your spyglass you might pick 
out the signs of banks, stores, and real-estate offices. 

There are many comfortable one- and two-story wooden 
cottages rising out of the muskeg. The people have 
blasted out the stumps in making the foundations for their 
homes, and some have brought earth and stones and built 
up level yards with lawns as green and smooth as those of 
old England. All kinds of vegetation grow luxuriantly. 
There are many beautiful flowers, and the town is green 
from one end of the year to the other. 

The climate here is milder than in Baltimore, Rich¬ 
mond, or St. Louis. The mean temperature in summer is 
about sixty degrees Fahrenheit, and in winter the ther¬ 
mometer seldom falls below eight or ten above zero. There 
is but little snow in the winter. The rainfall reminds me 
228 


PRINCE RUPERT 


of that of southern Chile, where they say it rains thirteen 
months every year. Because of the dampness the frosts 
are heavy, and they sometimes cover the roads to a depth 
of three inches. Then the people have tobogganing 
parties on these roller-coaster highways. 

Prince Rupert started with a boom. The town was 
planned and partially developed before a single lot was 
offered for sale. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway de¬ 
cided upon the site, named it after the first governor of 
the Hudson's Bay Company, who was the nephew of 
Charles I, and sent its engineers to clear the land, level the 
hills, and lay out the city. The railway owned twenty- 
four thousand acres of land and the first sub-division 
covered one twelfth of that area. The future city was 
advertised, and auctions were held in Victoria and Van¬ 
couver. The first lots brought high prices, and the boom 
continued until the war halted its progress. 

The inhabitants believe this city will become a great 
port and that it will some day have a population of one 
hundred thousand or more. With a view to the future, 
the city has built the largest floating dry dock on the 
Pacific coast. It has cost more than three million dollars 
and will accommodate ships up to six hundred feet in 
length and twenty thousand tons capacity. Nearly 
three thousand vessels enter the harbour in a year, and 
this number is on the increase. 

Prince Rupert lies so far north on the globe that it is five 
hundred miles nearer Yokohama than are Vancouver and 
Seattle. Moreover, the journey from western Canada to 
Europe is shortened by the railroad route from here to the 
Atlantic. England is only about four days from Halifax. 
The Canadian National runs from there to this port in one 
229 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


continuous line across the continent. It crosses eastern 
Canada far north of the Great Lakes and from Winnipeg 
goes through the wheat belt to Edmonton. It climbs the 
Rockies by easier grades than any other road. It has 
short cuts by various connections to all the United States 
cities, and it promises to be the fast freight route for 
perishable products between Alaskan waters and the rest 
of the continent. 

The city is two days nearer Alaska by steamer than are 
the Puget Sound ports, and travellers from the eastern 
parts of Canada and the United States can reach there 
that much sooner by coming here over the Canadian 
National. 

The fisheries of British Columbia are the most valuable 
in the Dominion. Prince Rupert has become one of the 
fishing centres of the Pacific and the chief halibut port in 
the world. It has thirty-five canneries and seven large 
cold storage plants, and scores of steam vessels, sailing 
boats, and gasoline launches go back and forth between 
here and the fishing grounds. About fifty American ves¬ 
sels land their catches at this port every week, and every 
train that goes eastward over the railway carries carloads 
of fresh fish to the cities of the United States. 

Halibut are caught for nine months of the year, twenty 
million pounds being landed here in a single season. 
The moment they are taken from the sea they are packed 
in ice for shipment or put into cold storage. 1 am told 
that the fish can be kept perfectly fresh for a month by the 
present method of packing. During the summer as many 
as a half dozen carloads are shipped in one day. More 
than a quarter of a million pounds were recently sent to 
New York and Boston in a single trainload. 

230 



Prince Rupert has miles of streets made of planks, upheld by trestle 
work, or resting on the rock underlying the city. Most of the streets and 
building sites were blasted by dynamite from the sides of the mountains. 



British Columbia leads all Canada in the value of its fisheries, of 
which Prince Rupert is the centre. More halibut is brought here each 
season than to any other port in the world. 










The animals, birds, and fish surmounting the totem poles are the family 
crests indicating the different branches of an Indian tribe at Kitwanga, 
not far from Prince Rupert. The poles number a score or more, and 
some are a hundred feet high. 







PRINCE RUPERT 

The chief salmon fisheries of the Pacific coast are 
farther north in Alaska, but nevertheless British Colum¬ 
bia’s catch is worth ten million dollars a year. At Van¬ 
couver I saw the fleets of salmon trawlers in the mouth 
of the Fraser. There are many salmon fisheries near the 
mouth of the Skeena, not far from Prince Rupert, and 
forty per cent, of all the salmon packed in the province 
is put up in this city. The fresh fish are shipped only 
during the summer months, but they are exported in a 
frozen state from the cold storage plants throughout the 
winter. 


231 


CHAPTER XXXI 


BY MOTOR CAR THROUGH THE WILDERNESS 

{ HAVE come into the Yukon Territory from Alaska. 
The trip from the land of Uncle Sam to that of John 
Bull was made over the route followed by thousands 
of gold seekers in the first great Klondike rush in the 
winter of 1897, when the prospectors made their way on 
foot over that frozen pass. It is now summer, and I 
have come from Skagway to White Horse, where 1 am 
now writing, on the White Pass Railway. 

My first journey into the interior of the Yukon has been 
a motor trip of a hundred miles on the overland trail 
that runs from here to Dawson. The car was of American 
make, the chauffeur was “Caterpillar Ike,” and the time 
was yesterday from midday to midnight. We dashed 
through virgin forests, climbed mountains, flew around 
dizzying curves, and skidded along narrow cliffs until 
my heart was in my throat but my soul was full of thrills. 

The overland trail begins at White Horse and runs 
through the wilderness for a distance of three hundred 
and fifty miles to Dawson at the mouth of the Klondike. 
It is more than one hundred miles shorter than the river 
trip to the gold mines, and it is used to carry mail, pas¬ 
sengers, and freight during the cold winter months when 
everything in this region is locked tight by Jack Frost. 
The road through the forest climbs over ranges of 
232 


MOTORING THROUGH WILDERNESS 


mountains, winds its way through the valleys, and crosses 
swamps, bogs, and sloughs of mud that sticks like cement. 
In many parts of its course it twists about like a cork¬ 
screw, as though the surveyors had laid their lines along 
the trail of a rabbit, and a drunken rabbit at that. Here 
it is bedded on rock, and there it half floats on a quick¬ 
sand covered with corduroy logs. In the spring of the 
year the six-horse teams of the mail stage are often mired 
to their bellies, and have to be lifted from the waxy clay 
by a block and tackle attached to the trees. 

My ride over the trail took me as far as the crest of the 
range beyond Little River, whence I returned to White 
Horse to go down the Yukon by steamer. The motor 
trip was a moving picture of the wonders of nature. On 
each side of the roadway the country is the same as it 
was when Columbus discovered America; it is the same as 
when the Scandinavian navigators drifted down our coast 
about iooo A. D.—yes, 1 venture, the same as it was 
when old Cheops built his great pyramid on the banks of 
the Nile. With the exception of several log huts where 
meals are served to travellers, there were no signs of human 
habitation, and aside from the roads, old and new, not 
one mark of human labour. We were in no danger of 
meeting other machines or farm wagons, although we 
might have run down a covey of birds instead of the usual 
chicken, or a fox or a bear in place of a dog. At one time a 
lynx leaped across the trail in front of our machine, 
and later a great flock of grouse passed over our heads 
with a whirr. I am told that hunters sometimes bag a 
good lot of birds on this route by shooting them from 
automobiles. 

All sorts of animal tracks were to be seen as we rode 

233 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


over the trail. The woods are full of bears, brown and 
black, caribou in great numbers, and wide-antlered moose. 
There are foxes and lynx and millions of rabbits. We 
passed groves of small trees, every one of which had been 
killed by the rabbits. They had eaten the bark off during 
the winter, beginning when the snow was two or three feet 
in depth and biting it away inch by inch as the snow 
melted, until a belt of white a yard wide girdled each tree. 
The bark above and below was dark green or brown, and 
the white shone out like ivory. Beavers and muskrats 
abound in the streams, and there are many kinds of 
squirrels, as well as gophers, that burrow like moles under 
the roadway. We crossed many such burrows, our motor 
car hitting them with a bump that shot us from our seats, 
so that our heads struck the top. 

Upon starting from White Horse we were told of a 
narrow escape from a bear that one of the railroad clerks 
had had only the night before. This man had gone out 
to a lake in the woods about five miles away and made a 
good catch of fish. He was riding home on his bicycle 
when a big black bear rushed out of the forest and upset 
him. Fortunately, he fell near a dead root. He seized 
this as he jumped up, and hit old Bruin a blow on the 
snout. Then, before the bear had time to recover, he 
mounted his bicycle and sped away. But the bear got the 
fish. 

Our first stop was twenty-two miles from White Horse, 
at the Tahkeena road house, on the Tahkeena River, 
where there is a famous Irish cook, Jimmy. The road 
house is built of logs and heated by a stove made of a 
hundred-gallon gasoline tank. The tank lies on its side, 
resting on four legs made of iron pipe. A stovepipe is 
234 


MOTORING THROUGH WILDERNESS 

fitted into the top and a door is cut in one end. The result 
is an excellent heating device, and one that is common in 
many parts of Alaska and the Klondike. We got a snack 
at this road house on our first stop and had an excellent 
dinner there on our return. 

We crossed the Tahkeena River on a ferry boat at¬ 
tached to a cable worked by the current. We then rode 
on through a parklike country, spotted with groves of 
pine trees, each as high as a three-story house, as straight 
as an arrow, and, branches and all, no bigger around than 
a nail keg. I cannot describe the beauty of these trees. 
Where they were thick we rode for miles through walls of 
green twenty or thirty feet high, and in places where the 
trees had been burned by forest fires the walls were of 
silver, the dead branches having been turned to the most 
exquisite filigree. 

The trees here are like those of most parts of interior 
Alaska. They grow in the thin soil, nowhere more than 
six inches or so deep, which is underlaid by strata of earth 
that have been frozen for thousands of years. The moss 
on the top of the soil acts as an insulator and keeps the 
ice from melting except on the surface. The roots go 
down to the ice and then spread out. When a tree dies 
one can easily pull the stump out, roots and all, and throw 
it aside. The overland trail was cleared in this way, and 
the sides of it are fenced with piles of such trees. 

We are accustomed to think of this part of the world 
as all snow and ice. That is so in winter, but in summer 
the whole country is as spotted with flowers as a botanical 
garden. During our ride we passed great beds of fire- 
weed and motored for miles between hedges of pink 
flowers, higher than the wheels of our automobile. The 
235 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


woods that had been swept by forest fires were dusted with 
pink blossoms, and in the open spaces there was so much 
colour that it seemed as though Mother Nature had gone 
on a spree and painted the whole country red. In one 
open place where we stopped to put on a new tire, I picked 
nineteen varieties of wild flowers. Among them were 
roses of bright red, and white flowers with petals like 
those of a forget-me-not. There were also blue flowers the 
names of which I do not know, and daisies with petals 
of pink and centres as yellow as bricks of Klondike gold. 

The mosses were especially wonderful. One that looked 
like old ivory grew close to the ground in great patches. 
It reminded me of the exquisite coral of Samoa and the 
Fijis. I am told that this moss is the favourite food of 
the reindeer, and that the caribou paw their way down 
through the snow to get it. Another curiosity found here 
is the air plant. I have always thought of orchids as 
confined to the tropics, but in this part of the world are 
polar orchids, great bunches of green that hang high up 
in the trees. 

The character of the country varied as we went onward. 
Now our way was across a rolling plain, now the road 
climbed the hills, and again it cut its way through the 
mountains. At one break in the hills we could see the 
Ibex Range, with glaciers marking its slopes, and its peaks 
capped with perpetual snow. In other places the moun¬ 
tains were as green as the hills of the Alleghanies, and they 
had the same royal mantle of purple. Just beyond the 
Tahkeena River we rode through a valley walled with 
mountains from which the earth had been torn by a 
cloudburst a few years before. The faces of the green 
hills were covered with clay-coloured blotches and they 
236 


MOTORING THROUGH WILDERNESS 


looked as though they had been blasted by leprosy or 
some earthy plague. 

We crossed one little glacial river after another, and 
rode through valleys that are covered with ice in the 
winter and become soup sloughs in the spring. A great 
part of the way was over what is known as glacial clay. 
This clay is solid when dry, but when moist it has the 
consistency of shoemakers' wax and, like a quicksand, 
sucks in anything that goes over it. A railroad track 
built on it and not well protected by drainage may dis¬ 
appear during a long rainy season. 

The labour of keeping the overland trail in order re¬ 
minds one of that of Hercules cleaning the Augean stables. 
The road bed has had to be filled in and remade again and 
again. The route is changed from year to year. Nowand 
then we passed an old roadway that had become so filled 
with boulders that a man could hardly crawl over it. This 
region had no rain for three months until day before 
yesterday, when enough fell to change the whole face of 
Nature, and make this glacial clay like so much putty. 
Our automobile weighed more than two tons, and we had 
to go carefully where there was any doubt as to the condi¬ 
tion of the clay. At one wet spot we found ourselves down 
to the axles, with the wheels held fast in the mud. We 
had brought with us an axe and a long-handled shovel for 
use in just such an emergency. We cut down trees and 
made a bed of branches in front of the car. A pine track 
was put under the wheels and a pine tree used as a lever to 
aid the jack in getting the car out of the mud. It took 
us about two hours to dig the machine from the clay and 
get it on the firm road bed. After that when we came to 
soft clay we turned out and sought new roads through the 
^37 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

grass or rushed over the wet spots to prevent the car from 
sinking. 

The overland trail is used almost altogether during 
winter, although the Canadian government keeps it in such 
a condition that it is fit for travel in summer. It is, on the 
whole, better than most of Uncle Sam’s roads in Alaska, 
and in the winter makes possible a regular mail service into 
the Klondike. The freight and the mail are carried on 
great sleds hauled by six horses, with relays at the various 
road houses. Each house has stables for the horses and at 
some of them there are sleeping accommodations for 
passengers. 

At the Tahkeena road house I saw a great stack of horse 
feed that had been brought up the Tahkeena and cached 
there for the winter, and at the Little River road house I 
saw one of the sleds used for carrying foodstuffs and other 
perishables into the Klondike during the cold season, 
when the thermometer may fall to seventy degrees below 
zero. The sled was a covered one, large enough to carry 
three or four tons. It was so arranged that carbon heat¬ 
ers could be placed in troughs around its bed. These 
heaters keep the tightly covered load from freezing. Such 
sleds are drawn by four or six horses, according to the state 
of the roads. 

The Canadian government has already spent a great 
deal on this road, and its upkeep costs thousands of dol¬ 
lars a year. Within the last few years the trail has 
been much improved for the use of automobiles. The first 
time an automobile road was proposed many people scoffed 
at the idea and said that it could not be done. The mat¬ 
ter came up before the Parliament at Ottawa and was dis¬ 
cussed pro and con. An appropriation of fifty thousand 
238 



Built at the height of the Klondike gold rush, the White Pass Railway 
transported thousands of prospectors and millions of dollars worth of 
gold during the first few years of its existence. It is one hundred and 
eleven miles long and connects Skagway^with White Horse. 


■I 










For more than half the year the Yukon River is covered with ice, and 
then mail, freight, and passengers for the interior are carried on sleds by 
way of the Overland Trail from White Horse to Dawson. 



“Our first stop was at the Tahkeena roadhouse, famous for its Irish 
cook. It stands on the banks of the Tahkeena River, which we crossed 
on a ferry.” 












MOTORING THROUGH WILDERNESS 


dollars had been asked. The objections made were that 
automobiles could not be run in the low temperature 
of the Yukon, and that the road was so rough that the 
machines could never make their way over it. 

This discussion occurred in the midst of the winter, 
and while it was going on the Honourable George Black, 
who was then Commissioner of Yukon Territory, decided 
to show parliament that the undertaking was practicable. 
He made an arrangement with C. A. Thomas, the resident 
manager of the Yukon Gold Company at Dawson, to 
take a forty-horse-power automobile over the trail. With 
a chauffeur, the two men left Dawson when the road was 
covered with snow and the thermometer far below zero. 
The long winter nights were at hand and the sun shone 
only an hour or so every day. The darkness was con¬ 
quered in part by a locomotive headlight on the front of 
the car. 

The trip to White Horse and return was made within 
fifty-six hours, of which thirty-six hours was actual run¬ 
ning. The distance of seven hundred and twenty miles 
was covered at an average speed of twenty miles an hour 
for the running time of the round trip. During the 
journey the thermometer fell to fifty-six degrees below 
zero, but the air was dead still, and wrapped up as they 
were in furs, the men did not realize how cold it was until 
they came to a road house and read the thermometer. 

It was necessary to keep the machine going continu¬ 
ously, for during a stop of even a few minutes the engine 
would freeze and the oil congeal. At one time their 
gasoline gave out and they had to stop twenty miles away 
from a road house they had expected to reach. A dog team 
was found and sent on to the road house, but while they 
239 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


waited the engine froze and the oil became stiff, and they 
had to build a fire under the car with wood from the forest 
before they could start off again. When they had com¬ 
pleted the journey and returned to Dawson the bill for the 
road appropriation was just coming up for action. The 
news of their trip was telegraphed to Ottawa and the bill 
was passed. 


240 


CHAPTER XXXII 


FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON 

W ITHIN the last fifteen days I have 
travelled by foot, by rail, and by steamer 
from the headwaters of the Yukon to 
Dawson, a distance of five hundred miles. 
The river has one of its sources in the coast range of 
mountains only fifteen miles from the Pacific Ocean. 
It starts as a trickling stream of icy cold water and 
winds its way down the hills to Lake Bennett. On the 
White Pass Railway I rode twenty-five miles along the 
east shore of that lake to Caribou, and thence for an hour 
or so farther to White Horse. That town is at the head 
of steam navigation on the Yukon, from where one can 
go for more than two thousand miles to the mouth of 
the river on Bering Sea, not far from the Arctic Ocean. 

The Yukon makes one think of Mark Twain’s descrip¬ 
tion of the Mississippi, which he knew so well as a pilot. 
He said: “ If you will peel an apple in one long paring and 
throw it over your head, the shape it will have when it 
falls on the floor will represent the ordinary curves of the 
river.” 

Let me take you with me on my trip down this looping 
river. In its upper reaches, it winds about like a snake. 
It narrows and widens, now measuring only a few hundred 
feet from shore to shore, and now almost as broad as a 
lake. It is full of sand banks, and there are rocky canons 
241 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

through which our boat shoots, its sides almost grazing the 
cliffs. 

Our ship down the Yukon from White Horse is the little 
steamer Selkirk , drawing between four and five feet of 
water. Nevertheless, it is so skilfully handled that it 
twists and turns with the current and at times swings 
about as though on a pivot. Now the pilot throws the 
boat across the stream and lets the current carry it along, 
and now he drives it through the rapids, putting on steam 
to make the paddles go faster. 

In addition to the boat itself we have a great barge to 
care for. Most of the freight that goes down the Yukon 
is carried on barges pushed along in front of the steamers. 
The load of to-day consists largely of cattle. The barge 
is enclosed in a high board fence, within which are eight 
cow pens, with a double-deck sheep-fold at the back. 
There are one hundred and fifty beef cattle in the pens and 
two hundred live sheep in the fold. The animals were 
brought by rail from Calgary to Vancouver. There they 
were loaded on a Canadian Pacific steamer and carried 
through the thousand milesof inland waterways that border 
the west coast of the continent to Skagway. They were 
then taken over the mountains on the White Pass Railway, 
and are now on their way to Dawson, where they will be 
transferred to another steamer that will push them a thou¬ 
sand or fifteen hundred miles more down the Yukon. 

The freight charges are so heavy that the animals 
selected must be of a high grade. The steers average 
three fourths of a ton and several of them weigh close to 
two thousand pounds each. They were raised on grass 
and are now fed on the bales of alfalfa piled around the 
edge of the barge. 


242 



From White Horse, at the head of navigation on the Yukon, during the 
open season from June to October one can travel by steamer down that 
river for two thousand miles to Nome on Bering Sea. 





A wood-burning heating stove common throughout Alaska and the 
Yukon is made from a gasoline tank turned on its side and fitted with 
legs of iron pipe. 







FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON 

We have other live stock on board. Down in the hold 
are eight hundred chickens bound for the hen fanciers of 
interior Alaska. They crow night and morning, and with 
the baaing of the sheep and the mooing of the cattle we 
seem to be in a floating barnyard. The barge is swung 
this way and that, and whenever it touches the bank, the 
sheep pile up one over the other, some of the cattle are 
thrown from their feet, and the chickens cackle in pro¬ 
test. 

The Selkirk burns wood, and we stop several times a day 
to take on fuel, which is wheeled to the steamer in barrows 
over a gangplank from the piles of cord wood stacked up 
on the banks. At many of the stops the only dwelling we 
see is the cabin of the wood chopper, who supplies fuel for 
a few dollars a cord. The purser measures with a ten-foot 
pole the amount in each pile loaded on board. Going 
down stream the Selkirk burns about one cord an hour, 
and in coming back against the current the consumption 
is often four times as much. The wood is largely from 
spruce trees from three to six inches in diameter. Many 
of the little islands we pass are covered with the stumps 
of trees cut for the steamers, but most of the wood stations 
are on the mainland, the cutting having been done along 
the banks or in the valleys back from the river. 

Except where we take on fuel there are no settlements 
on the Yukon between White Horse and Dawson. The 
country is much the same as it was when the cave dwellers, 
the ancestors of the Eskimos, wrought with their tools of 
stone. For a distance of four hundred and sixty miles we 
do not see a half dozen people at any stop of the steamer, 
although here and there are deserted camps with the 
abandoned cabins of prospectors and wood choppers. 
243 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


One such is at Chisana, near the mouth of the White 
River. The town was built during the rush to the Chisana 
gold mines, and it was for a time a thriving village, with a 
government telegraph office, a two-story hotel, and a log 
stable that could accommodate a dozen horses and numer¬ 
ous sled dogs. The White Pass and Yukon Company 
built the hotel and the stable, expecting to bring the 
miners in by its steamers and to send them into the in¬ 
terior withl horses and dogs. It did a good business until 
the gold bubble burst and the camp “ busted.” To-day 
the Chisana Hotel is deserted, all the cabins except that 
of the wood chopper are empty, and under the wires lead¬ 
ing into one of them is a notice: “Government telegraph, 
closed August 3, 1914.” 

The woodman’s cabin is open. A horseshoe is nailed 
over the door and a rifle stands on the porch at the side. 
On the wall at the back of the hut a dog harness hangs on 
a peg. The skin of a freshly killed bear is tacked up on 
one side, and bits of rabbit skins lie here and there on the 
ground. The cabin itself is not more than eight feet in 
height. It is made of logs, well chinked with mud and 
with earth banked up about the foundation. There is a 
weather-strip of bagging nailed to the door posts. The 
door is a framework filled in with pieces of wooden packing 
boxes for panels. 

Entering, we find that there are two rooms. One is a 
kitchen, and the other a living room and bedroom com¬ 
bined. Three cots, made of poles and covered with 
blankets, form the beds. There are some benches for 
seats and a rude table stands under the window. Various 
articles of clothing hang from the walls or lie upon the 
floor. In the kitchen a table is covered with unwashed 
244 


FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON 


dishes. There is a guitar on the shelf near the stove and 
a pack of cards on a ledge in the logs. The whole is by no 
means inviting, but I doubt not it is a fair type of the 
home of the prospectors and woodsmen throughout this 
whole region. 

I have seen most of the great rivers of the world--the 
Rhine, the Danube, the Volga, the Nile, the Zambesi, the 
Yangtse, and the Hoang Ho. I know the Hudson, the 
Mississippi, the Ganges, the Indus, and the Irrawaddy, 
as well as the Amazon and the Parana, and many other 
streams of more or less fame. But nowhere else have I 
seen scenery like that along the Yukon. We seem to have 
joined the army of early explorers and to be steaming 
through a new world. We pass places 

Where the mountains are nameless. 

And the rivers all run God knows where. 

Much of the country is semi-desert, but some of it is as 
green as the valley of the Nile. In places the hills, sloping 
almost precipitously back from the river, are wrinkled 
with dry waterways filled with scrubby forests. In others 
there are series of ledges rising one over the other, making 
great terraces from the edge of the stream to the tops of 
the mountains. 

The Yukon changes its course like the Yellow River of 
China. Now we pass through gorges of silt where the 
sand walls rise above us to the height of a twenty-story 
office building; and now swing around beds where we seem 
to be walled in by the cuttings made by the water. The 
hills are composed of earth washings, and from year to year 
the snaggy teeth of old Father Time have been gouging 
long furrows out of their sides. These furrows have 
245 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


caught the moisture, forests of small evergreens have 
grown up in them, and the landscape for miles looks as 
though it had been ploughed by the gods and drilled in 
with these crops of green trees. This makes the country, 
when seen from a distance, seem to be cultivated. There 
is a scanty grass between the patches of forests, and the 
whole is like a mighty farm planted by the genii of the Far 
North. 

As we go down the river the scenery changes. Here the 
banks are almost flat and are covered with bushes. There 
on the opposite side they are of a sandy glacial alluvial 
formation, perfectly bare. At times the soil is so friable 
that it rolls down in avalanches, and a blast from our 
steam whistle starts the sand flowing. It makes one 
think of the loess cliffs on the plains of North China. 
Those cliffs contain some of the richest fertilizing matter 
on earth, and their dust, carried by the wind, enriches the 
country upon which it drops as the silt from the Abys¬ 
sinian highlands enriches the Nile Valley. 

The soil from the upper Yukon, on the other hand, is 
poorer than that which surrounds the Dead Sea at the 
lower end of the Jordan. It lacks fertilizing qualities, and 
some of it rests on a bed of prehistoric ice, which carries 
off the rainfall, leaving no moisture for plant life. A 
geological expert in our party says it is as though the 
land were laid down on plates of smooth copper tilted to¬ 
ward the valleys to carry the rain straight to the rivers. 
He tells me that the region has only ten or twelve inches 
of water a year, or a rainfall similar to that of California in 
the neighbourhood of Los Angeles. He says also that 
sixty-five per cent, of the water that falls finds its way to 
the streams. 


246 



The upper Yukon River in places is only a few hundred feet from bank 
to bank, and in others as wide as a lake. Throughout most of its length 
it is dotted with islands in all stages of formation. 




The Yukon twists and turns in great loops and curves throughout its 
entire length, and at Five Finger Rapids presents a stretch of water that 
can be navigated only by the exercise of the utmost skill in piloting. 





FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON 


Much of our way down the Yukon is in and out among 
islands. The stream is continually building up and tear¬ 
ing down the land through which it flows, and the islands 
are in every stage of formation. Here they are sand bars 
as bare as the desert of Sahara; there they are dusted with 
the green of their first vegetation. A little farther on are 
patches of land with bushes as high as your waist, and 
farther still are islands covered with forest. Each island 
has its own shade of green, from the fresh hue of the 
sprouts of a wheatfield to the dark green mixed with 
silver that is common in the woods of Norway and Sweden. 
Not a few of the islands are spotted with flowers. Some 
from which the trees have been cut are covered with fire- 
weed, and a huge quilt of delicate pink rises out of the 
water, the black stumps upon it standing out like knots 
on the surface. Such islands are more gorgeous than the 
flower beds of Holland. 

In places the Yukon is bordered by low hills, behind 
which are mountains covered with grass, and, still farther 
on, peaks clad in their silvery garments of perpetual snow. 
At one place far back from the river, rising out of a park 
of the greenest of green, are rocky formations that look 
like castles, as clean cut and symmetrical as any to be seen 
on the banks of the Rhine. Down in the river itself are 
other great rocks, more dangerous than that on which the 
Lorelei sat and with her singing lured the sailors on to their 
destruction. 

One such formation is known as the “Five Fingers/’ 
It consists of five mighty masses of reddish-brown rock 
that rise to the height of a six-story building directly in the 
channel through which the steamers must go. The cur¬ 
rent is swift and the ship needs careful piloting to keep it 
247 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


from being dashed to pieces against the great rocks. The 
captain guides the barge of cattle to the centre of the chan¬ 
nel. He puts the barge and the steamer in the very heart 
of the current and we shoot with a rush between two of 
these mighty fingers of rock down into the rapids below. 
As we pass, it seems as though the rocks are not more than 
three feet away on each side of our steamer. 

A little farther on we ride under precipices of sand 
that extend straight up from the water as though they 
were cut by a knife, with strata as regular as those of a 
layer cake. They seem to be made of volcanic ash or 
glacial clay. They rise to the height of the Washington 
Monument and are absolutely bare of vegetation, save for 
the lean spruce and pine on the tops. 

We pass the “Five Fingers” between one and two 
o’clock in the morning, when the sun is just rising. This 
is the land of the midnight sun, and there are places not 
far from here where on one or two days of the year the 
sun does not sink below the horizon. Even here, at 
midnight it is hard to tell sunrise from sunset. There 
is a long twilight, and the glories of the rising and the 
setting sun seem almost commingled. At times it has 
been light until one o’clock in the morning, and I have 
been able to make notes at midnight at my cabin win¬ 
dows. 

There is a vast difference between this region and the 
rainy districts near the Pacific coast. We have left the 
wet lands, and we are now in the dry belt of the great 
Yukon Valley. The air here is as clear as that of Colorado. 
The sky is deep blue, the clouds hug the horizon, and we 
seem to be on the very roof of the world, with the “deep 
deathlike valleys below.” We are in the country of 
248 


FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON 

Robert Service, the poet of the Yukon, and some of his 
verses come to our minds: 

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow 
That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim; 

I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow 
In crimson and gold, and grow dim, 

Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, 

And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; 

And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming, 

With the peace o’ the world piled on top. 


249 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON 

I WRITE of Dawson, the capital of Yukon Territory, 
the metropolis of the Klondike, and for years the 
richest mining camp of the world. In the height of 
its glory it had more than thirty thousand inhabi¬ 
tants, and in the region about there have been more than 
sixty thousand people. To-day the population of the 
town is less than one thousand. With the gradual ex¬ 
haustion of the gold the population is decreasing, and it 
may be only a question of years when the precious metal 
will all have been taken from the ground and the chief 
reason for a city here will have disappeared. One of the 
great hopes of the people is in the discovery of rich quartz 
mines or the mother lode from which all the loose gold 
came. The hills have been prospected in every direction, 
but so far no such find has been made. 

Dawson lies just where it was located when gold was 
discovered. The houses still stand on the banks of the 
Klondike and Yukon rivers where the two streams meet. 
The town is laid out like a checkerboard, with its streets 
crossing one another at right angles. They climb the sides 
of the hills and extend far up the Klondike to the begin¬ 
ning of the mountains of gravel built up by the dredgers. 
The public roads are smooth, and the traffic includes 
automobiles and heavy draft wagons. There are more 
than fifty automobiles in use, and two hundred and fifty- 
250 


THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON 

five miles of good country highways have been made by 
the government in the valleys near by. 

Dawson has been burned down several times since the 
great gold rush, and vacant lots covered with the charred 
remains of buildings are still to be seen. Most of the 
stores are of one story, and log cabins of all sizes are 
interspersed with frame houses as comfortable as those 
in the larger towns of the States. Scores of the homes 
have little gardens about them, and not a few have 
hothouses in which vegetables and flowers are raised under 
glass. Empty houses and boarded-up stores here and 
there show the decline in population. 

This is the seat of government of Yukon Territory and 
the district headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted 
Police. Here the judges hold court, and here the com¬ 
missioner has his residence. The government house is a 
large yellow frame building with a wide porch. In front 
of it is a beautiful lawn, and beds of pansies border the 
walk that leads to the entrance. At the rear are gardens 
filled in summer with the most delicious vegetables grown 
in the Yukon, and near by are the hothouses that supply 
the tomatoes and cucumbers for the commissioner’s table. 

Yukon Territory is next door to Alaska, and its re¬ 
sources and other characteristics are so similar that it 
might be called Canadian Alaska. Its southern boundary 
is within thirty miles of the Pacific Ocean, and the territory 
extends to the Arctic. It is a thousand miles long and in 
places three hundred miles wide, and it comprises almost 
as much land as France. It is one third the size of Alaska 
from which it is separated by the international boundary, 
which crosses the Yukon River about one hundred miles 
from here. 


251 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


The Dawson of to-day has none of the earmarks of the 
Dawson of the past. It has now several churches, a city 
library, radio concerts, women's clubs, sewing societies, 
and afternoon teas. The palatial bars where beer cost 
three dollars a bottle and champagne twenty dollars a 
pint have long since disappeared. The hymns of the Sal¬ 
vation Army have taken the place of the songs of the dance 
halls, and in the hotel where I am staying is a Christian 
Science lecturer who is drawing large crowds. 

The order on the streets is as good as that of any town 
in New England, and educationally and socially the place 
is the equal of any of its size in the States. There is still 
a large proportion of miners, but most of them are con¬ 
nected with the great dredging and hydraulic operations, 
and the independent prospectors are few. There are 
many business men and officials, as well as lawyers and 
doctors. Now and then Indians come in to sell their furs 
to the traders. The stores have large stocks of goods 
and handle most of the trade of the Yukon and some of 
that of eastern Alaska. 

For the first few years after gold was discovered in the 
Klondike everything was paid for in gold dust or nuggets, 
and the store-keepers had their gold scales, upon which 
they weighed out the price of their goods. Every miner 
then carried a gold poke, and paid for a cigar or a drink 
with a pinch of dust. To-day the only place where one 
can use any coin less than a quarter is at the post-office, 
and there the change is in stamps. 

Visiting a grocery store, I saw cantaloupes selling 
at seventy-five cents apiece, chickens at three dollars, 
and eggs at a dollar a dozen. These are the summer 
prices. In the heart of midwinter, when the hens go on a 
252 


THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON 


strike, eggs soar to five dollars a dozen. In early days 
they sometimes sold for eighteen dollars, and were cheap 
at one dollar apiece. In a butcher shop hard by I saw 
salmon that had been brought seventeen hundred miles 
up the Yukon, and the finest of porterhouse steaks. As 
I have said, the beef has to be brought in from southern 
Canada or the States, and the freight rates are so high 
that the butchers cannot afford to import skinny animals. 
Indeed, I am told that the transportation charges are 
quite as much as the first cost of the meat. 

“All game here is cheap/’ said a butcher I talked with. 
“We sell moose and caribou steaks and roasts at twenty or 
twenty-five cents a pound. As to bear, the people won’t eat 
it; it is too tough. In the winter we have plenty of caribou. 
The Indians kill deer in great numbers and bring in the 
hind quarters, peddling them about from house to house. 
The fore parts of the animals they feed to their dogs. This 
country is also full of grouse and ptarmigan, and any one 
can get game in the winter if he will go out and hunt for it.” 

The commissioner of the territory tells me that the 
Yukon is one of the best big game regions of the North 
American continent. All shooting is restricted and 
licensed, and, so far, there is no indication of the animals 
dying out. There is an abundance of moose, mountain 
sheep, and mountain goats, and ten thousand caribou 
may sometimes be seen moving together over the country. 
Such a drove will not turn aside for anything. One can 
go moose hunting in an automobile within twenty-five 
miles of Dawson. The moose are among the largest of the 
world. Their horns have often a spread of five or six feet, 
and it is not uncommon to kill caribou with antlers having 
more than thirty points. 


253 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


At a drug store I paid a quarter for a bottle of pop. 
The proprietor, a pioneer gold miner, had a store in 
Pittsburgh before he came to hunt for gold in the Klondike. 
He did fairly well mining, but decided there was more 
money in drugs. 

“My prices are small, compared with what I got when 
I first started business/' he said. “I used to charge a 
dollar for a mustard plaster, a dollar for a two-grain qui¬ 
nine pill, and fifty cents an ounce for castor oil. I sold 
my Seidlitz powders at a dollar apiece, and flaxseed for 
thirty-two dollars a pound. The latter was used largely 
to make a tea for coughs and colds. I remember a chee- 
chako, or tenderfoot, who came in during those days. He 
asked me for ten cents' worth of insect powder. I looked 
him over and said: 'Ten cents! Why man, I wouldn’t 
wrap the stuff up for ten cents.' The cheechako turned 
about and replied: 'You needn't wrap it up, stranger; 
just pour it down the back of my neck.' ” 

Speaking of the old-time prices, 1 hear stories every¬ 
where as to the enormous cost of things in the days of the 
gold rush. All tinned vegetables were sold at five dollars 
a can, and a can of meats cost a third of an ounce of gold 
dust or nuggets. At one time, the usual price of all sorts 
of supplies and provisions was one dollar a pound. One 
man tells me he bought an eight-hundred-pound outfit in 
Dawson for eight hundred dollars. It consisted of provi¬ 
sions and supplies of all kinds, shovels and nails costing 
the same as corn meal and rice. At that time flour sold for 
fifty dollars a sack, firewood for forty dollars a cord, and 
hay for from five hundred to eight hundred dollars a ton. 

I heard last night of Jack McQuestion, who had a 
log cabin store at Forty Mile, a camp on the Yukon. One 
254 



Many who live in Dawson in winter spend their summers in little 
cabins in the country or on the islands in the river. Some of them grow 
flowers and vegetables for the Dawson market in gardens along the 
river. 



Though not many degrees south of the Arctic Circle, the official resi¬ 
dence of the Commissioner of Yukon Territory has in summer green 
lawns, shade trees, and beds of flowers that thrive in the long hours of 
sunlight. 








Dawson is so far north on the globe that some days in midsummer have 
only one hour of darkness. This photograph of Mr. Carpenter and a 
miner’s pet bear was taken after ten o’clock at night. 





THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON 

day a miner came in and asked for a needle. He was 
handed one and told that the price was seventy-five cents. 
The man took the needle between his thumb and finger, 
looked hard at it, and then said to McQuestion: 

“Say, pard, ain't you mistaken? Can’t you make it a 
bit cheaper? That’s an awful price for a needle.” 

“No,” said the storekeeper, “I’d like to if I could, 
but great snakes, man, just think of the freight!” 

Another story is told of a miner who wanted to buy 
some sulphur. The price asked was five dollars a pound. 

“Why man,” said he, “I only paid five cents a pound 
for it in Seattle last month.” 

“Yes, and you can get it for nothing in hell,” was 
the reply. 

Here in Dawson the days are now so long that I can read 
out-of-doors at any time during the twenty-four hours. 
I can take pictures at midnight by giving a slight time 
exposure, and in the latter part of June one can make 
snapshots at one in the morning. It is not difficult to get 
excellent photographs between nine and eleven p. m. and 
at any time after two o’clock in the morning. The sun 
now sets at about eleven p. m. and comes up again about 
two hours later. The twilight is bright and at midnight 
the sky is red. Last night I saw a football match that did 
not end until after ten o’clock, and moving pictures were 
taken near the close of the game. 

I find that the light has a strange effect upon me. 
The sleepiness that comes about bedtime at home is ab¬ 
sent, and I often work or talk until midnight or later 
without realizing the hour. The air is invigorating, the 
long hours of light seem life-giving, and I do not seem to 
need as much sleep as at home. 

255 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


The weather just now is about as warm as it is in the 
States. The grass is green, the trees are in full leaf, there 
are flowers everywhere, and the people are going about 
in light clothing. The women go out in the evening with 
bare arms and necks, and the men play football, baseball, 
and tennis in their shirt sleeves. There are many bare¬ 
footed children, and all nature is thriving under the hot 
twenty-two-hour sun of the Arctic. 

Many people here declare that they like the winters 
better than the summers, and that they all—men, women, 
and children—thrive on the cold. The pilot of the boat 
on which I came in from White Horse tells me he would 
rather spend a winter on the Upper Yukon than at his old 
home in Missouri. He says that one needs heavy woollen 
clothing and felt shoes or moccasins. When the thermom¬ 
eter falls to fifty or sixty degrees below zero he has to be 
careful of his face, and especially his nose. If it is not 
covered it will freeze in a few minutes. At twenty de¬ 
grees below zero the climate is delightful. The air is 
still and dry, and the people take short walks without 
overcoats. At this temperature one needs a fur coat 
only when riding. Cows and horses are kept in warmed 
stables and get along very well. Horses are seldom used 
when the thermometer is fifty degrees below zero. At 
that temperature the cold seems to burn out their lungs. 
Still, it is said that there are horses that are wintered 
in the open near Dawson. They have been turned out in 
the fall to shift for themselves and have come back in 
the spring “hog fat.” 

The old timers here tell me that the dreariness of 
the long nights of the winter has been greatly exaggerated. 
During that season most of the earth is snow-clad, and 
256 


THE CAPITAL OF THE YUKON 

the light of the sky, the stars, and the moon reflected 
from the snow makes it so that one can work outside al¬ 
most all the time. True, it is necessary to have lights in 
the schools, and in the newspaper offices the electricity is 
turned off only between 11:15 in the morning and 2:15 in 
the afternoon. The morning newspaper men who sleep 
in the day do not see the sun except upon Sunday. 

In the coldest part of the winter the snow makes 
travelling difficult. It is then so dry that the dogs pull¬ 
ing the sleds have to work as hard as though they were 
going through sand. In March and April the snow is not 
so powdery and sleighing is easier. The ideal winter 
weather is when the thermometer registers fifteen or 
twenty-five degrees below zero, with a few hours of sun¬ 
light. The most depressing time is from the middle of 
December until the end of the first week in January. 
Then comes the most severe cold, and the sun may not 
be seen at all. 

It is this midwinter period that is described in many 
of the gruesome poems of the Yukon, especially in Ser¬ 
vice's “Cremation of Sam McGee." You remember how 
Sam McGee left his home in sunny Tennessee to roam 
around the North Pole, where: 

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a 
spell; 

Though he’d often say in his homely way that he’d sooner live in hell. 

The poet describes how Sam froze to death on the trailj 
above Dawson and how, before he died, he made his 
partner promise to “cremate his last remains." This was 
done, between here and White Horse, on the “marge of 
Lake Lebarge." There the frozen corpse was stuffed 
257 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


into the furnace of the derelict steamer Alice May and a 
great fire built. Sam McGee’s partner describes “how 
the heavens scowled and the huskies howled, and the 
winds began to blow,” and how, “though he was sick with 
dread, he bravely said: Til just take a peep inside.’ ” He 
then opens the furnace door; 

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace 
roar; 

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close 
that door. 

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm-. 

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been 
warm.” 


258 



Yukon Territory is said to have thirty-eight million acres of land 
that can be utilized for crops or grazing. Above the Arctic Circle red- 
top grass, which is used as hay, grows almost as high as a man. 





Land on the upper Yukon will yield six or seven tons of potatoes an 
acre. Sometimes prices are so high that one crop from this seventeen- 
acre field has brought in ten thousand dollars. 










CHAPTER XXXIV 

FARMING ON THE EDGE OF THE ARCTIC 

T HIS is the story of Chicken Billy and his ten- 
thousand-dollar potato patch. It is about a 
young American who became the poultry king of 
the Klondike, and then turned to farming with 
such success that he has had a field of potatoes that 
brought in ten thousand dollars in one year. 

Chicken Billy is a representative type of the farmers 
of the Far North. I first met him yesterday afternoon 
when he called at my hotel here in Dawson. A rough¬ 
looking man of less than medium height, hisface is bronzed 
by the hot summer sun of the Arctic and his hands are 
horny from handling the plough. He had brought some 
of his crops of hot-house vegetables into Dawson for sale, 
and he wore his working clothes—a flannel shirt open at 
the neck, blue jeans somewhat the worse for wear, and a 
pair of rough boots that reached to his knees. 

Billy was born in Philadelphia and went to school 
there. He was still under twenty when he passed the 
examinations for appointment to the navy. He was so 
excited over his success that when he came into the hands 
of the surgeons to be tested as to his physical fitness his 
heart was throbbing at the rate of a hundred-odd beats 
to the minute, and the result was that the doctors said 
he had heart disease and pronounced him unfit for service. 
Billy then worked at odd jobs, without great success, 
259 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


until one day he read in a newspaper about the gold strike 
in the Klondike. The article was headed “Gold at the 
Grass Roots/' and Billy tells me he decided to dig into 
the grass and take out a fortune. He had only seventeen 
dollars at the time, but with that he got to St. Paul and 
thence worked his way up to Skagway. He walked in 
over the Dyea trail and fought for his own with the miners 
of Dawson. He got some gold from his various ventures, 
but made no big strikes, and finally gave up mining to 
raise chickens. For this purpose he bought an island in 
the Yukon not far from the mouth of the Klondike, and 
built a henhouse of logs with glass windows facing the 
south. 

For a while Billy prospered. His eggs sold for fifty 
cents each, and his fat chickens brought in forty or fifty 
dollars a dozen. He built up his flock until he had nine 
hundred chickens, and his fresh-laid eggs became so well 
known that he acquired the nickname of Chicken Billy. 
When he thought he was on the sure road to success, 
competition arose. The other poultry raisers cut prices, 
and chickens dropped to a dollar apiece. Billy began to 
lose money and so looked about for other kinds of farm¬ 
ing. He is now raising only fancy chickens, and is de¬ 
voting his energy to hogs and potatoes, with occasional 
crops of turnips and oats. 

My visit to Billy’s farm was one of the most interesting 
trips I have had in the Yukon. We started up the river 
from Dawson in a gasoline boat about three feet wide and 
forty feet long. The boat had a big paddle wheel at the 
end attached to the engine by a long iron shaft. We had 
gone only two miles when this shaft broke and we had to 
row ourselves to the nearest island. Leaving the beach, 
260 


ON THE EDGE OF THE ARCTIC 

we made our way through the potato rows from one farm 
to another. The first farm we visited was owned by a 
Swede. He had eleven acres under cultivation, half in 
potatoes, and half in oats. The oats are grown for hay, 
and some of it stood in shocks as high as my head, while 
that not yet cut reached halfway to my waist. 

The owner told me that this oats hay often sells for 
sixty dollars a ton. When I asked what he expected 
to get for his potato crop, he fixed the price at ninety 
dollars a ton, saying that it might go as high as one hun¬ 
dred dollars. He told me of one crop from three acres 
that had yielded him thirty-seven hundred dollars. That 
was when the Guggenheim syndicate began to dredge out 
the gold of the Klondike. They were employing large 
numbers of men, and potatoes were scarce. Since then 
he has raised nothing but potatoes and oats. The next 
farm we visited produced potatoes and carrots. The 
woman in charge told me that the carrots paid as well 
as the potatoes. She said that she and her husband 
enjoyed their summer home on the Yukon. They live in 
Dawson in winter. 

Leaving this farm, we found ourselves at the end of the 
island with the next one about a half mile upstream. This 
was Billy’s island, and a loud shout brought his helper 
after us in a canoe. Upon landing we first took a look 
at the hot-house, where cucumbers and tomatoes are 
raised for the markets of Dawson. This is one of the 
most interesting features of farming in the Far North. 
There are more than twenty-five big hot-houses in Dawson 
itself, and they are all doing well, although Billy says his 
farm makes more profit than any two of the others. 

Billy’s hot-house is about thirty feet wide and fifty feet 
261 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


long. It consists of a great pit walled with logs to the 
surface of the ground and above that a framework en¬ 
tirely covered with glass. The house is kept warm by 
wood fires, the ever-present gasoline tank having been 
made into a stove for the purpose. The plants are set out 
in beds upon low tables, which are connected with a 
network of wires. The vines of the cucumbers and toma¬ 
toes are trained on the wires. They climb up the walls 
and hang down from the roof. Many of the cucumbers 
are over ten inches in length and the largest tomatoes 
are bigger than the head of a baby. 

Leaving the hot-house we took a look at the hogs. Dur¬ 
ing the summer they are kept in enclosures out in the 
open and in the winter they live in the log henneries, which 
have been turned into pig pens. The buildings are 
warmed with good stoves, and the fires are kept up day and 
night. In the winter the pigs are fed upon potatoes and 
grain. Their food is cooked and served hot morning 
and evening. Every bit of manure is saved, Billy says, for 
the soil of the Yukon needs fertilizing, and this by-product 
is worth almost four times as much as in the United States. 

I went with Billy from pen to pen to examine the stock. 
It is said that a man may be known by the way animals 
act in his presence; that if they like him he is to be trusted, 
if not, he is a man to be watched. If this is true, Chicken 
Billy should sprout angel’s wings. His hogs seemed to 
love him. He talked to them as though they were 
human, and they lay down and rolled over like pet dogs. 
One of his biggest boars did tricks. The babies of the 
hog pens were of all ages, from little red piggies as big as a 
kitten to lusty black Berkshires the size of a fox terrier. 

Chicken Billy started in the hog business with fourteen 
262 


ON THE EDGE OF THE ARCTIC 

pigs—Duroc-Jerseys, Berkshires, and Yorkshires—most 
of which had taken prizes at the agricultural fair at Van¬ 
couver. He bought them for sixty dollars apiece, and 
shipped them into the Klondike for breeding purposes. 

Leaving the pigs, we went to the farmhouse, a log cabin 
of two rooms besides a kitchen. The earth was banked 
up around the outside to keep out the winter cold, and 
inside were great stoves. For dinner we had eggs fresh 
from the hens, fried with ham that fairly melted in our 
mouths. There were mealy potatoes as good as any that 
ever came out of Ireland, although they had been har¬ 
vested more than a year before. The bread was made by 
Billy’s hired man, and there were more cucumbers than 
we could possibly eat. 

After dinner we took a skiff and rowed from the island 
over to Billy’s potato farm on the mainland. This farm 
was on the banks of the Yukon, and the crop was raised 
within a stone’s throw of the river in a seventeen-acre 
field a half mile long. I have seen many farms, but none 
better cultivated and more free from weeds than this 
potato patch. The rows were perfectly straight and the 
vines reached to my knees. Billy told me he hoped to get 
six or seven tons to the acre, or more than three thousand 
bushels in all. At one hundred dollars a ton the gross 
receipts would be something like ten thousand dollars. 

In the centre of the patch is a log cabin with a great 
cellar where the potatoes are stored until shipped to 
market. This is so well built and so insulated with air 
spaces that the potatoes do not freeze, even in the severest 
weather. 

There is no doubt that potatoes can be raised in most 
parts of Alaska and the Yukon. When Luther Burbank 
263 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


was in Dawson he said that these regions may some day 
be among the chief potato lands of the world and that by 
selective breeding a potato can be developed that will 
mature here to perfection. Even now the country is rais¬ 
ing nearly all that it needs, and the potato imports are 
decreasing. This year the crop is especially good, and 
the potatoes are equal in quality to any brought in from 
outside. 

Plants live upon sunshine, and as the Yukon Territory 
has about one third more sunlight than the United States 
in the same period of summer, Nature puts on its seven- 
league boots and makes things grow during our nights. 
Growth begins in April, when the crocuses come up 
through the snow. Gardens are planted by the middle 
of May, and by the latter part of June there are vegetables 
to eat. The chief summer month is July, although the 
frosts do not come until the middle of September. After 
that follows Indian summer, when the hills are ablaze with 
gold. 

The country about Dawson is virgin land covered with 
trees, which are usually stunted except in the river bot¬ 
toms. There are meadows in the south and the southwest, 
and also great areas that can be used for grazing. Doctor 
Dawson, the man who first surveyed the territory, says 
that there are thirty-eight million acres that can be 
utilized either for crops or for grazing. He compares the 
Yukon with some of the inland provinces of Russia where 
oats, rye, barley, flax, and hemp are raised successfully. 

Most of the farming is in small patches. There are 
gardens about the miners' cabins where potatoes and 
turnips, green peas and beets, and carrots and celery are 
raised. Last year one man grew forty tons of turnips 
264 


ON THE EDGE OF THE ARCTIC 


upon a single acre, and from another acre the same man 
raised five hundred and sixty-one bushels of potatoes. 
Another farmer brought in to Dawson a cauliflower meas¬ 
uring ten inches in diameter, a turnip weighing fourteen 
pounds, and six heads of cabbage that tipped the scales 
at one hundred and thirty pounds. 

Already a number of homesteads have been taken up 
in the territory, and there are little farms here and there 
on the banks of the Yukon and on the islands with which 
it is dotted. The soil is a sandy loam made up of silt 
brought down by the river. The land is so thickly covered 
with bushes and trees that it costs one hundred dollars 
and upward an acre to clear it. Farm wages are high, 
although the demand for labour is limited, and the market 
for potatoes and other vegetables is confined to the small 
population in the mines and in Dawson. If the farms are 
increased by many new homesteaders there may be a 
glut in the market and the prices will fall. 


265 


CHAPTER XXXV 


MINING WONDERS OF THE FAR NORTH 

T HIS faraway land of the North is the treasure 
cave of Jack Frost, where gold and gravel are 
cemented together by perpetual ice. You know 
of the thousands who rushed here years ago, and 
of the hundreds who went back loaded with riches. You 
may have heard how the district about Dawson, where I 
am writing, produced gold by the ton, the output for ten 
years being worth more than one hundred million dollars. 

In those days pockets worth hundreds of dollars were 
not uncommon. In August, 1899, George T. Coffey took 
up two shovelfuls of earth from Bonanza Creek, from 
which he washed sixty-three ounces of gold, worth nearly 
a thousand dollars. A miner by the name of MacDonald 
got ninety-four thousand dollars for the gold from a forty- 
foot patch of ground. Some of the miners on Bonanza 
Creek were dissatisfied if the gravel ran less than a dollar a 
pan. They worked the rich spots only, and when the 
cream had been skimmed off the surface, gave up their 
claims. 

The gold diggers were followed by corporations. They 
brought to the abandoned fields millions in capital and the 
best mining machinery. They thawed the frozen gravel 
with steam and scooped up the gold-bearing earth with 
dredges run by electricity. They carried rivers in pipes 
over the mountains to wash down the gold-sprinkled hills. 
266 


MINING WONDERS OF THE FAR NORTH 

They handled millions of tons of material, each of which 
yielded only a few grains of pure gold, but altogether they 
produced as much wealth as was taken out in those first 
prosperous years by the individual miners. 

There are two methods by which the treasure that has 
been left is being recovered. One is hydraulic mining 
and the other is dredging. Let me give you some of the 
pictures of the first method, as I saw it on a ride up the 
Klondike Valley this afternoon. I went with the resident 
manager of the Yukon Gold Company, the Guggenheim 
corporation doing most of the gold mining in the Dawson 
district. We flew along in a high-powered automobile, 
winding in and out through great piles of debris. We 
rode up Bonanza and Eldorado creeks, which have been 
dredged from one end to the other. The whole way was 
through a mass of gravel, rock, and earth washings. The 
beds of the rivers and creeks had been ploughed in great 
furrows many feet deep. There were places where miles 
of boulders, pebbles, and broken rock seemed to flow down 
the mountain sides into the valley. Streams of water as 
big around as the thigh of a man were shooting from pipes 
with such force that they gouged out great chunks of icy 
gravel. In some places the water dropped from the top of 
the mountain, washing down the earth in its fall. The 
whole gave me the impression of a mighty cloudburst that 
had torn down the hills and let loose avalanches of earth. 

The story behind those streams of water will give you 
some idea of the marvels of mining in the Far North. 
When the company bought what were supposed to be the 
exhausted creeks of the Klondike, it found that in order to 
work its concessions it must have water with sufficient 
force to wash out the hills. There was no adequate supply 
267 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


nearer than the Tombstone Mountains, seventy-odd miles 
away. The Guggenheims spent four years and millions of 
dollars in bringing this river to their gold fields. They 
carried it across frozen morasses, through vast ravines, 
down stupendous valleys, and then lifted it over mountains 
and delivered it by a great inverted siphon across the 
Klondike River to the once famous diggings. 

Much of the ditch had to be thawed out and cut from 
the perpetual ice. I n crossing the swamps new methods of 
road building had to be devised, and men and machinery 
were assembled far in the interior of a region once thought 
inaccessible to all but the most daring arctic explorers. 
The supplies, mostly from the United States, had to come 
a thousand miles over the ocean and then be carried five 
hundred miles more across the mountains and down the 
Yukon to Dawson. Machinery was taken to pieces and 
dragged by horses and dogs through almost impassable 
wilds. 

The water flows through about twenty miles of flume, 
twelve and a half miles of steel and stave pipes, and thirty- 
eight miles of ditch. It comes out at the rate of one 
hundred and twenty-five cubic feet a second, and with a 
pressure of four hundred pounds to the square inch. 

As the stream is applied, the gold-bearing sand, gravel, 
and water go tumbling down into sluice boxes filled with 
steel riffles bedded in mercury. The quicksilver catches 
the gold, while the rock and sand go on to the tailings 
below. Some of the gold sinks into the pile at the foot of 
the sluicing, but this is reclaimed at the clean-up in the fall. 
Something like three million cubic yards of earth are 
treated in this way by the hydraulic giants each season. 
The average amount of gold in the gravel is about twenty 
268 


MINING WONDERS OF THE FAR NORTH 

cents’ worth per yard, and of this amount one half is said 
to be profit. The dividends paid by the Yukon Gold Com¬ 
pany have amounted to more than ten million dollars, and 
the profits of a single year have been as much as one mil¬ 
lion. 

As we rode up the valleys I asked the manager whether 
this process took out all of the gold. He replied: 

“We may lose a cent or two to the ton, but the amount 
is so small that we are unable to tell just what it is. The 
gold content varies a good deal. The stuff that goes 
through the dredges may at times yield sixty cents a yard, 
and we have struck patches that ran five dollars per yard 
or more. 

“The old miners threw away the values that are now 
being saved,” he went on. “One day I showed an old- 
timer a pan I had just finished washing, and asked him 
how much he thought it would run. The pan contained a 
few flakes of gold and quite a little fine flour gold. The 
miner tilted it so that the grains ran to one side, and then 
took his thumb and scraped out the flour and threw it 
away. He threw out just the sort of stuff which we are 
trying to save, and upon which all our calculations are 
based.” 

The dredges, by which much of the gold is now being 
taken out, operate in ground that has to be thawed before 
it can be worked. With the exception of a foot or so at 
the surface, this whole Klondike region is one mass of ice, 
mixed with boulders, pebbles, and sand that has been 
frozen for thousands of years. The ice goes down no 
one knows how deep. Diamond drills sunk to a depth of 
three hundred feet have gone all the way through frozen 
earth. The mixture is covered by a thin bed of muck, on 
269 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


top of which grows a layer of arctic moss. It is only when 
the moss and the muck are stripped off that the hot sum¬ 
mer sun makes any impression on the ice below. Sprinkled 
through this ice, earth, and rock lies the gold in the pro¬ 
portion of from thirty to sixty cents’ worth to the ton. 
In a wagon load of this mass there is not more pure gold 
than you can pinch up between your forefinger and thumb. 
Yet methods for mining it have been devised that make it 
worth going after. There is a little gold not far from the 
surface, but most of it is at bed-rock, which may be thirty, 
forty, or fifty feet down. 

The earth has to be thawed out, inch by inch, and foot 
by foot, in such a way that the dredges can bite into it 
and gulp it down at the rate of twenty-six bites to the min¬ 
ute and about one third of a ton to the bite. 

The dredges do their work so thoroughly that no bit of 
earth ever escapes them. You can throw a red cent into 
the heart of a ten-acre field that is to be upturned by these 
machines and be sure that the coin will come out with the 
gold. A common amusement is to saw a dime in two and 
then bet whether the dredges will bring up one of the pieces. 
The man who bets in the negative holds one of the halves, 
and the other is buried in the earth. As soon as that 
spot is dredged, the missing half is almost certain to turn 
up. 

The first miners kept wood fires burning until they had 
thawed their shafts down to the gold. Other fires were 
then built along the bed-rock and the earth was dug out un¬ 
til they had made great caverns and tunnels thirty or forty 
feet under the frozen earth overhead. They used hot 
stones to aid in the thawing and took out the loosened 
material in wheel-barrows and raised it to the surface with 
270 


MINING WONDERS OF THE FAR NORTH 

buckets and a windlass like an old-fashioned well-sweep. 
The earth being frozen, the miners did not have to bother 
to use any timbers to support the roofs of their tunnels. 

Much of the thawing of to-day is done by steam forced 
into the earth through steel tubes three fourths of an inch 
in diameter, and from ten to thirty feet long. These are 
called “ points.” Each tube has a hard metal cap or steel 
head on the top, and below this an opening where the con¬ 
nection with the main steam pipe is made. The bottom of 
the tube is pointed so that it can be forced down into the 
ground. A man stands on a tall derrick and with a twelve- 
pound sledge hammer drives the pipe, inch by inch, 
through the earth. The steam-heated steel melts the ice 
as it goes down. When the point reaches bed-rock, it is 
left there for two or three days, oozing forth steam. To 
thaw out enough ground for the dredges to work on, hun¬ 
dreds of these steam points have to be sunk. In places the 
pipes are so close together that they stand out on the back 
of old Mother Earth like the quills on a porcupine. They 
soften the ground so that it is dangerous to walk over it 
until it has cooled. A man may think it is solid under foot, 
when all at once he may sink to his knees or waist in 
scalding hot mud. 

In the creeks where the Yukon Gold Company has been 
operating with steam points and dredges, the values 
amount to sixty or seventy cents’ worth of gold to the ton. 
The thawing costs about thirty cents for each ton. When 
the famous Joe Boyle, organizer of the Canadian Klondike 
Company, came to figure on his problem he found that the 
steam-point method would cost him four cents more a ton 
than the value of the gold he could recover. He concluded 
that if he could get rid of the great non-conductor of muck 
271 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


and moss that covered the frozen earth, the sun of a few 
summers would eventually thaw its way down to bed¬ 
rock. 

Then came the question of how to strip off the muck at 
a cost that would not eat up the profits. Boyle decided 
that the Klondike River itself could be made to do the job. 
He dammed it in places and turned its course this way and 
that. The current soon cleaned off the top layer, and 
when the water was drawn off it left the gravel exposed to 
the rays of the sun. 

Boyle spent in the neighbourhood of a half million 
dollars apiece for some of the dredges with which he 
scooped up the earth thawed out by the sun. They were 
the largest ever built up to that time, and were manu¬ 
factured especially for his purposes. They were brought 
in pieces by sea to Skagway, Alaska, carried over the coast 
mountains by train, and transported down the Yukon by 
steamer to Dawson, where they were put to work. They 
are now lifting the bed of the Klondike Valley and turning 
it upside down at the rate of five hundred tons in an hour. 
Buckets that hold a ton apiece pick up boulders as big as a 
half-bushel basket and earth as fine as flour. They raise 
this stuff to the height of a six-story house and pour it 
through revolving screens. The rock, gravel, and sand 
are carried away, and the gold is caught in layers of coco¬ 
nut matting. Every twenty-four hours the mats con¬ 
taining the gold are lifted and washed. The gold and 
the black sand fall to the bottom and the mats are put back 
again. 

While 1 was cashing a draft at the Bank of British North 
America the other day, I had concrete evidence of the 
wealth being won, grain by grain, from the Klondike. I 
272 


MINING WONDERS OF THE FAR NORTH 


saw a shipment of gold ready to be sent out. It had come 
to the bank in the form of dust and nuggets and had been 
melted down into bricks. There were fifty thousand dol¬ 
lars' worth of these bricks lying on the counter, covering a 
space about three feet square. They were of a light yellow 
colour, and some were almost white on account of their 
high percentage of silver. Some were the size of a cake of 
laundry soap while others were only as big as a cake of milk 
chocolate. I lifted one of the larger ones. It weighed a 
little more than twelve pounds and its value was two 
thousand dollars. Later I saw the bank clerk put the 
bricks into canvas bags and label them for export by 
registered mail. 

Leaving the bank, I dropped in at the offices of the 
Northern Commercial Company, where I watched gold 
dust and nuggets being made ready for shipment to the 
States. The gold filled two satchels and was worth in 
the neighbourhood of one hundred thousand dollars. It 
was put up in little sacks the size of a five-pound salt bag. 
Each sack was worth from five to ten thousand dollars. 

All gold that is shipped out of Canada pays a royalty 
or tax to the government, and everyone who leaves the 
Klondike is examined to see that he has no gold upon him. 
Once a woman succeeded in smuggling out a large quan¬ 
tity of nuggets and dust. She was examined by the in¬ 
spectors, but they took no account of a big flower pot con¬ 
taining a rose bush that she was carrying with her. Not 
until she got safely away was it learned that the soil with 
which the pot seemed to be filled was only half an inch deep 
and that underneath were hundreds of dollars' worth of 
almost pure gold. 


273 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE 

S IT beside me on the top of King Solomon's Dome 
and listen to some of theromancesof the Klondike, 
| true stories surpassing the fiction of the “Arabian 
Nights." King Solomon’s Dome is the very 
centre of the Klondike gold region. It is a mountain 
higher than the average peaks of the Alleghanies, rising 
three thousand feet above Dawson, and I have climbed to 
its top in an automobile. There at the west is Bonanza 
Creek, where, twenty-five years ago, gold was first found, 
and running into it is Eldorado Creek, where Swift-Water 
Bill Gates and Charlie Anderson, the Lucky Swede, as well 
as scores of others, made their fortunes. 

The man who first discovered gold in the Klondike was 
George Carmack, a New Englander who had come to 
Alaska from North Adams, Massachusetts. He married 
an Indian and he had three Indians with him when he was 
prospecting on the ground just below us. As the story 
goes, one of the Indians who had gone to the creek for 
some water saw the gold shining there in the sand. Tak¬ 
ing up some dirt on the edge of the creek, the men washed 
it, and within a half hour had recovered twenty dollars’ 
worth of gold. Carmack then laid out claims for himself 
and his three companions, each of which brought a fortune 
that all too soon slipped through its owner’s fingers. 

The news of the discovery spread like wildfire over the 
274 



Although the earth contains only a few cents’ worth of gold to the ton, 
the use of giant dredges to scoop up the gravel from the beds of the Klon¬ 
dike and Yukon rivers enables the mining companies to operate at a profit. 





Hi 


With all the force of a shell from a big gun, a giant stream of water is 
played against the hillside, washing the earth into sluice boxes, where a 
layer of mercury catches even the most infinitesimal particles of gold. 








ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE 


North. It was telegraphed to all parts of the world and 
by the next year men were rushing to the Klondike from 
every direction. They staked both sides of the Bonanza. 
They set up claims along Eldorado, Dominion, and Hunker 
creeks, and dug out gold all along the valley of the Klon¬ 
dike River. 

Charlie Anderson’s claim was No. 29 Eldorado and it 
cost him six hundred dollars. He had saved this money 
from his wages as a pick-and-shovel miner at Forty Mile, 
and bought the mine one night when he was too drunk to 
know what he was doing. When he awoke the next day he 
wept bitter tears and asked the men who thought they had 
swindled him to take back the claim and give him his money. 
They refused, and so Anderson walked eighty miles to the 
Klondike and started work. He found only a hole in the 
ground, but he thawed and dug eighteen feet deeper and 
came upon a fortune. When he made the first strike the 
men who had sold him the claim were near by and asked 
with a sneer what he had found. He replied: “Ay tank 
Ay got some gold here,” and showed them his pan. There 
were fourteen hundred dollars’ worth of gold nuggets in it, 
and the claim eventually yielded between one and two 
million dollars. But, like other Klondikers, Anderson ran 
through his money as fast as it came. He was cheated by 
every one, and ended as a day labourer somewhere in the 
States. 

In coming down the Yukon to Dawson the captain of the 
steamer told me many stories about Charlie Anderson, 
whom he had known well. Said he: 

“Anderson had been doing railroad work in the States, 
but was discharged, and that drove him to Alaska. When 
he struck it rich he took out more than two hundred thou- 
275 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


sand dollars the first year, and during the next four years 
his claim yielded him almost two million dollars.” 

“ What did he do with the money?” I asked. 

“He spent it as fast as he got it. He kept a gang of 
gamblers and dance hall girls about him and gave away 
thousands. When he was at the height of his fortune and 
had an income of a half million a year, he fell in love and 
was married. He took his wife to San Francisco, where he 
bought her a house and gave her all the money she could 
spend besides. When he was about at the end of his for¬ 
tune he told me she had cost him a quarter of a million. 
He then pulled out of his pocket a garter with a clasp set 
with a diamond as big as the end of your thumb, and said; 

“'And this is all 1 have to show for it. I am almost 
broke now, but I will go back and find some more/ 

“Anderson's claim was then played out,” the captain 
continued. “He tried to find others, but failed. In his 
first trips with me he travelled in state, buying all the 
liquor and cigars that the ship had and standing treat to 
the passengers. On his last trip he booked in the steerage. 
He was dead broke. Shortly after we started I saw him, 
dressed in rough clothes, sitting at the prow of the boat. 

I went up to him and said: 

“‘Well, Charlie, it is different with you from what it 
used to be/ 

“ He looked up and his eyes filled with tears. 

“‘Yes/ said he, ‘ I am travelling steerage, for I have not 
enough money to pay first class.' 

“ I was so sorry for him that I put him in one of the first 
cabins and took him home without charge.” 

Swift-Water Bill Gates' story was a good deal like 
Anderson's. He was a Portuguese, who got his nickname 
276 


ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE 


from his claim that he swam down the rapids of the Yukon 
on his way to the gold fields. He began as a waiter in an 
eating house. One day while serving two miners he heard 
one tell the other of the gold discovery in the Klondike. 
He left their order unfilled, got a dog team, and rushed 
to Dawson. He was in at the first and picked out a number 
of claims, including that on Eldorado, which made him a 
fortune. He was successful for years, but was so dissi¬ 
pated that he ran through his millions, and when he left 
with the stampede to Fairbanks, he had only fifty cents in 
his pockets. There he made a second great strike, but he 
lost that fortune as well. 

Swift-Water once cornered the egg market in Dawson, 
and all for the love of a lady. He was a gallant suitor, 
and at this time he was courting Miss Gussie Lamore, a 
popular and beautiful young woman who had been nick¬ 
named “The Little Klondike Nugget.” But the course of 
true love did not run smooth, and for a time it seemed as 
though Bill’s cake were all dough. Then he remembered 
that Gussie doted on eggs, and he prepared to corner the 
supply. There were just eight thousand eggs in the town, 
and they were selling at a dollar apiece. Bill slipped 
about from store to store and bought every one of them. 
He then remarked that if Gussie wanted more eggs she 
would have to eat out of his hand, or if she stuck to his 
rival “she wouldn’t eat no eggs.” Gussie succumbed, and 
so Cupid won by an egg. 

In another claim on Eldorado a young Y. M. C. A. sec¬ 
retary struck it rich. This man had started mining on 
Forty Mile Creek, but when gold was discovered near Daw¬ 
son he left his young wife thereand came on with the crowd. 
The first claim he selected was comparatively small and 
277 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


had no timber upon it. As he needed logs to build a cabin, 
he traded his claim for another farther down the creek 
where the valley was wider and timber was plentiful. He 
built a cabin, sent for his wife, and they started to work. 
When he had thawed the earth to some distance below the 
surface he laboured down in the pit and his wife wound the 
windlass that drew up the buckets of rocks. Time and 
again, in despair, they talked of selling out and going back 
home. But they held on until they came to bed-rock, 
where the gold was so rich that their claim paid them 
about two million dollars. Unlike Anderson and Gates, 
this man invested his money in real estate in Seattle. 

All sorts of characters came to the Klondike in the early 
days. With such types as the Lucky Swede, Swift-Water 
Bill, and Frank Slavin, the prize fighter, came business and 
professional men from all parts of the United States. 
Joaquin Miller came to mine gold and write poetry and 
newspaper articles. Rex Beach was here, and so was Jack 
London. Jack London was at one time a partner of 
Swift-Water Bill, and it is said that the two owned a claim 
that eventually produced more than one million dollars in 
gold. Jack London began the work on the property. He 
made a fire and thawed the muck on the top of the gravel. 
He left his tools in the soft mud over night. Before morn¬ 
ing the thermometer dropped to sixty degrees below zero, 
and when he again started to work he found he would have 
to thaw out his tools, but that if he did so their handles 
would be burned. He left in disgust, and Swift-Water Bill 
got all the gold. Jack London’s wealth came from the 
literary material he carried away as the result of his ex¬ 
periences. The same may be said of Rex Beach, who 
has written so many good stories of Alaskan life, and of 
278 



To-day most of the Klondike gold is recovered by machinery in large- 
scale workings, but now and then one sees a miner washing the gravel 
by hand in a contrivance like this. 





Some of the miners, instead of moving on to new scenes of action 
when the gold began to give out, have stayed on with their families, work¬ 
ing a few acres of land and occasionally panning out a little gold. 



Much of the Yukon is unexplored, and bridges and ferries are few, so 
the hunter and the prospector must ford the rushing streams and make 
their own trails through the country. 









ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE 

Robert Service, whose shabby cabin still stands near the 
Dome. 

Indeed, many books might be made about the ups and 
downs of the Klondike in the height of the gold fever. 
Men came here beggars and went away millionaires, and 
millionaires lost fortunes and became tramps. Gold was 
shipped out by the ton, and in the city of Dawson it was 
spent by the pound. At the start, the town was what in 
slang phrase is known as "wide open/’ The scores of 
gambling houses, saloons, and dance halls all made money. 
In one dance hall twelve women were employed at $50 a 
week, besides the twenty-five per cent, commission they re¬ 
ceived on the drinks and cigars sold through their blandish¬ 
ments. One girl stated that her bar commission for the 
first week amounted to $750. Another saloon had six 
beauties to dance at $ 1 50 a week, and in many of the halls 
the women were paid a dollar for a dance of five minutes. 

I have before me a copy of a bill of fare of one of the old 
restaurants. A bowl of soup cost %\ and a bowl of mush 
and milk #1.25. A dish of canned tomatoes cost $ 2 , a 
slice of pie 75 cents, and a sandwich with coffee, $1.25. 
Beans, coffee, and bread were $ 2 , a plain steak was $3.50, 
and a porterhouse was $5. 

A leading restaurant, which had a seating capacity of 
thirty-two, employed three cooks, one of whom received 
$100 a week, and the others $1 an hour. The waitresses 
got $100 a month. The restaurant occupied a tent twenty 
by forty feet, which rented for $900 a month. Carpen¬ 
ters were drawing $15 a day, and common labourers $10. 
Skilled woodworkers got $17 a day, and journeymen 
tailors % 1.50 an hour. The ordinary charge for a sack suit 
was #125. Barbers made from $15 to $40 a day, each re- 
279 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


ceiving sixty-five per cent, of the receipts of his chair. Four 
barber shops were in operation, and their prices were $i 
a shave, $1.50 for a hair cut, and $2.50 for a bath. 

During that winter newspapers brought in over the trail 
sold for $2 apiece. A weekly newspaper was started, 
known as the Yukon Midnight Sun , which cost $1 5 a year, 
and a little later the Klondike Nugget was issued weekly at 
50 cents a copy. 

Banks were soon established and did a big business in 
buying gold dust and putting their notes into circulation. 
The first eight days after it opened its doors, the Canadian 
Bank of Commerce bought one and one half million dollars' 
worth of gold dust. Some years ago the old building in 
which that bank had its offices was burned, and one of the 
clerks asked permission to work over the ground as a gold 
claim. He wanted to recover the waste from the assay of¬ 
fices and also the dust that had fallen on the floor from 
time to time in the purchase of gold. His request was 
granted and his idea proved worth thousands of dollars. 


280 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


A DREDGE KING OF THE KLONDIKE 

S INCE I have come to western Canada I have ac¬ 
quired a contempt for Aladdin. At every step 
| here I am meeting common, everyday men who 
are enslaving genii a million times mightier than 
those of the Arabian Nights. They rub their magic lamps 
and mechanical wonders spring up almost in a night. They 
give an order and change the course of a river. They lift 
a hand and valleys are turned upside down. Of all these 
conquerors of Nature in the Klondike none has come up to 
Joseph W. Boyle, the famous dredge king, who was once 
the most striking figure in this land of gold. 

Joe Boyle started at the bottom and won great wealth 
and a dominant position. In manner and thought he was 
as plain as a pipe stem. A giant of a man, over six feet in 
his stockings, he was straight and well formed. He had a 
big head, a broad, high forehead, and eyes like blue steel. 
Yet he was a good companion and hail-fellow-well-met 
with those he liked. He was a friend to his employees and 
addressed them by their first names. They referred to him 
always as "Joe Boyle” or “J. W. B.,” but they understood 
that he was the boss and that everything must be done 
just as he said. 

Boyle began his fight with life as a boy and kept it up 
until he died after the World War. His father, who was 
a farmer living at Woodstock, in eastern Canada, had 
281 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

planned that Joe should become a lawyer or a preacher 
and with that end in mind had sent him to college. This 
was too tame for “J. W. B.” He left school and shipped 
before the mast as a sailor. Once, in going from the Island 
of St. Helena around the Cape of Good Hope, his ship 
sprang a leak. Boyle took charge of the crew at the pumps 
and kept them at work for four thousand miles until they 
sailed into Bombay. When he had risen to the position 
of quartermaster of a British vessel he gave up the sea 
and came home. 

A little later he struck out for the West, where he be¬ 
came trainer and manager for Frank Slavin, the bare¬ 
knuckle champion prize fighter. The two staked their all 
on Slavin’s success in a big fight, which was lost. They 
had exactly fifty cents between them when they decided to 
go up to the new gold minesof the Yukon. They “mushed” 
it from Dyea over the mountains, and got to the Klondike 
shortly after gold was discovered. For a time they 
worked together, and then Boyle engaged in placer mining 
with Swift-Water Bill Gates. 

At one time he and five or six companions ran out of 
supplies. They had started for the “outside” through 
Chilkoot Pass, where a blizzard caught them. Swift- 
Water was overcome, and Boyle carried him back into 
camp on his shoulders. After that the party came to a 
stream that only Boyle had the strength to cross. He 
took over the others one at a time and they went on their 
way. When at last they reached San Francisco they were 
given a big banquet and on the menu cards was printed the 
story of what Boyle had done. 

At this time Boyle was not doing as well as he had 
hoped at his mining. He looked over the ground of the 
282 


A DREDGE KING OF THE KLONDIKE 

Klondike Valley and conceived the idea that there was a 
fortune to be made in the earth the miners had left. 
Boyle stood on a little hill above the Klondike River, 
and determined to lease all the land within sight. This 
was when the mining in the creeks was at its height and 
the valley was so lean it was thought worthless. 

Joe Boyle also staked a timber claim ten miles in length 
and extending through and beyond the area of his mining 
claim. Everyone laughed at his mining proposition, but 
he had to fight for his timber. As soon as news of his 
application got out his competitors at Dawson saw the 
authorities and had them require him to stake out the 
whole ten miles of his claim. This stipulation was made 
at three o’clock on the afternoon before the last day in 
which the title could be perfected. Boyle started on foot 
that afternoon and tramped all night, wading through 
swamps, blazing trees, and driving stakes to define limits. 
The work was exhausting, but he kept on until he thought 
he had marked out not less than fifteen miles. He got 
back to Dawson at nine o’clock the next morning, only 
to find a number of men ready to jump his claim if it had 
not been staked. When the area was measured according 
to law, it was found that his stakes fell short only twenty 
feet of the ten miles allotted. Boyle put in saw-mills and 
made money out of his lumber and wood. He got from 
this same claim the timbers needed in his gold dredging. 

His lumber profits gave Boyle the money he needed to 
approach capitalists about financing his mining conces¬ 
sions. He first formed an alliance with the Rothschilds, 
by which he was to have one third and they two thirds of 
the stock. The understanding was that they were to fur¬ 
nish the money, amounting to some millions, and that 
283 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


Boyle was to manage the property and superintend its 
development. 

Then the Rothschilds tried to squeeze out “J. W. B.” 
They questioned his title and planned a reorganization. 
Boyle carried the matter to Ottawa; he fought them in 
the courts, where he got a judgment in his favour for more 
than six hundred thousand dollars. The Rothschilds then 
offered him a million dollars for his share of the stock. 
He refused and in return made them an offer of four hun¬ 
dred thousand dollars for the two thirds they held. At 
first they laughed, but they finally reconsidered and ac¬ 
cepted his proposition. Boyle then formed another cor¬ 
poration, the Canadian Klondike Mining Company, by 
which name the property is known to this day. 

This company owns leases from the government of 
Canada that give it the right to work the lower valley of 
the Klondike up to the crest of the mountains on both sides 
of the river. The greater part of its holdings lie in the 
wide bed between the hills through which runs the swift¬ 
flowing river. At a distance it looks like farm land and 
when the concessions were granted much of it was covered 
with gardens. It had been cleared of woods by the first 
miners, who, it was generally believed, had stripped the 
soil of its gold. 

Joe Boyle thought otherwise. He reasoned, “ If so much 
gold has come from the valley there must be quantities of 
gold dust and grains in the bed-rock underneath.” Work¬ 
ing upon that supposition, he became a rich man by hand¬ 
ling gold-bearing earth carrying values of only about 
twenty-six cents to the ton. 

And this brings me to another of the wonders of en¬ 
gineering in the Far North. It is a device invented by 
284 


A DREDGE KING OF THE KLONDIKE 


Boyle for keeping the hydro-electric plant running through¬ 
out the winter, notwithstanding the fact that the tempera¬ 
ture at times falls to seventy degrees below zero. That is 
so cold that if you should attempt to run a sprayer such as 
is used in an orchard the water would turn to ice before it 
fell to the ground. At such times some of the streams have 
seven feet of ice over them and many are solid. Never¬ 
theless, Boyle turned a branch of the Klondike River into 
a ditch six miles long and dropped it down upon turbines 
with a fall which he said would generate electricity to the 
amount of ten thousand horse-power a day all the year 
through. 

Joe Boyle knew that the waters of the Yukon and the 
Klondike flow under the ice all winter long and that there 
is an air space between the water and the ice overhead. 
He concluded that, on the principle of the double walls of 
an ice house or a thermos bottle, it was this dead air space 
that kept the running water from freezing. The only 
thing necessary was to make Nature furnish the thermos 
bottle. This Boyle did. He filled his ditch to the top and 
allowed a sheet of ice to freeze a foot or so thick upon it. 
He then lowered the level of the water two feet, leaving a 
running stream four feet deep, with an air space above. 
He next installed electric heaters underneath to help keep 
the water from freezing. In this way he made the water 
warm itself, for the stream thus kept moving generated 
the electricity for the heaters, each of which required cur¬ 
rent equal to one hundred horse-power. 

I went out yesterday in an automobile to North Fork, 
thirty miles up the Klondike Valley, to see this electric 
plant. The ditch is thirty feet wide, about six feet in 
depth, and six miles long. The water drops down through 
285 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


great pipes, with a fall of two hundred and twenty feet 
on the turbines. 1 asked one of the men how Mr. Boyle 
got the idea of electrically heating the water and was told 
it came to him one morning at breakfast. The family 
had toast and eggs, and were browning the bread on the 
electric toaster. As he looked at it, Boyle thought that 
he might employ the same principle in keeping the water 
from freezing. His men made out of telephone wire a 
gigantic toaster somewhat like a woven-wire bed spring. 
This was properly insulated, dropped into the ditch, and 
connected with the electric plant. 

In 1914 Boyle was forty-seven years old and in the prime 
of his vigour. Moreover, he had just won a million dol¬ 
lars in a suit against the Guggenheims and so had plenty 
of cash for any adventure. He organized a machine gun 
battery of fifty gunners, picked men of the Yukon, and 
offered them to the Allied armies. To his great distress, 
his battery was broken up and scattered through the forces. 
He went to London and from there was sent into Russia to 
help in keeping transportation open. On one occasion he 
reported to the chairman of the Soldiers’ Committee, who 
was inclined to be nasty. 

“ Were you sent here because you were the best man they 
could find on the Western Front?” he demanded of Boyle. 

“Possibly so,” was the reply. “And now, you answer 
me this. Are you the best man on your committee?” 

“ I am,” answered the chairman, expanding his chest. 

“Very well, 1 will meet you man to man,” said Boyle, 
as he unbuttoned his coat and doubled his fists. He had 
no more trouble with that chairman. 

When Russia gave up, Colonel Boyle went over into 
Rumania, where he became a national hero. He under- 
286 



Starting with a capital of fifty cents, Joe Boyle made a fortune by glean¬ 
ing gold from abandoned workings. Then he gave up mining to go to war 
and became almost as famous in Eastern Europe as in the Klondike. 










To get the water for washing down the gold-bearing gravel of the 
Klondike hills, millions of dollars were spent in building ditches, flumes, 
and pipes from the Tombstone Mountains, seventy miles away. 




A DREDGE KING OF THE KLONDIKE 

took all sorts of dangerous and important missions. For 
instance, when the Bolsheviki were beginning to get the 
upper hand, he offered to go to Moscow to bring back 
the national treasure of Rumania, which had been sent 
there for safe keeping. He got into Moscow, loaded mil¬ 
lions of dollars' worth of bank notes and securities on a 
special train, and started back. On the way the engineer 
of the train deserted, leaving his boilers without water or 
fuel. Boyle and his helpers carried water in buckets from 
the nearest station and cut wood for the fire. Though he 
had never driven a locomotive before, Boyle climbed into 
the cab and got the train and its treasure across the border. 
Later he turned the Russian Black Sea fleet pro-Ally, ar¬ 
ranged peace terms between Rumania and the Bolsheviki, 
and saved sixty Rumanian deputies from banishment to 
Sebastopol. 

After the Armistice he was commissioned to superintend 
the distribution of the food and supplies bought for the 
country with the Canadian credit of twenty-five million 
dollars. Then he became interested, with the Royal Dutch 
Shell Transport Company, in oil concessions in Caucasia. 

In the course of his many adventures in Rumania, 
Colonel Boyle flew so high and so fast in airplanes that he 
suffered a sort of paralytic stroke. During his illness he 
was attended for two months by Queen Marie and her 
daughter, who did everything they could to show their 
appreciation of his service to their country. He finally 
recovered, but when in England on his way back to 
Canada, he died of heart failure. 


287 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 

E VERYONE has heard of the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police. They constitute one of the most 
remarkable military forces in existence, with an 
amazing record for the capture and punishment of 
criminals in the frontier lands of the Dominion. I have 
met with the Mounted Police in all parts of Canada, have 
visited the headquarters in Ottawa and the training station 
at Regina, and have talked here at Dawson with the in¬ 
spector in charge of the Yukon division. I find the ser¬ 
vice a gold mine of stories, and fully deserving its repu¬ 
tation for maintaining law and order on the fringes of 
civilization. 

Our own “wild and woolly West” has disappeared, but 
Canada still has vast areas of undeveloped country into 
which white men are pushing their way under conditions 
similar to those in the United States a generation or two 
ago. But where our frontier was notorious for its law¬ 
lessness, that of the Dominion is equally noted for its few 
crimes. In the Canadian Northwest a “ bad man ” cannot 
long escape the strong arm of the law, and in nine cases 
out of ten he meets with punishment both swift and 
sure. 

From the wheat lands adjoining our border to the gold 
rivers of the Yukon, from the Great Lakes to the Arctic 
Ocean, the settler, the prospector, or the trader can lie 
288 


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 


down to sleep at night with little fear for his safety. That 
this is so is chiefly due to this police force. 

Detachments of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police 
are now located all over Canada. They are to be found in 
the thickly populated centres as well as in the Far North. 
But it was as a frontier police that the organization was 
first created, and it was in the Northwest Territories that 
its reputation was made. It has its stations about Hud¬ 
son Bay, along the Peace River, on the banks of the Mac¬ 
kenzie, and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The latest 
posts established are those on the north coast of Baffin 
Island, opposite Greenland, and on Ellesmere Island, less 
than one thousand miles from the North Pole. 

The duties of the Mounted Police are widely varied. 
They are especially charged with the enforcement of fed¬ 
eral statutes, and are wholly responsible for law and order 
in the Northwest Territory, the Yukon, the national parks, 
and the Indian reservations. Elsewhere the organization 
cooperates with provincial authorities and the federal de¬ 
partments. It looks after such matters as violations of 
the customs, of excise regulations, the circulation of radical 
or revolutionary propaganda, the improper storing of 
explosives, and the debauching of the Indians. Special 
patrols are sometimes sent out to strengthen the hands of 
the Indian Department when unrest is reported among 
their charges. Some are detailed to see that the betting 
at the race tracks in the various provinces does not in¬ 
fringe upon the laws, and others to escort trainloads of 
harvest workers to their destinations and prevent dis¬ 
orders on the way. Patrols go for hundreds of miles by 
dog sled into the Far North to keep order and investigate 
crimes among the Eskimos. 

289 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 

The actual discharge of these duties leads to a variety 
of activities. The Mounted Police patrol the United 
States border to guard against smuggling of liquor, Chi¬ 
nese, and narcotics. They ride about the newly colonized 
districts, visiting the homes of the settlers and watching 
for cattle thieves. Any complaint of disorder or law 
breaking is promptly investigated, and a member of the 
force may spend months in the role of detective, seeking 
evidence or making a search for a suspected man. 

The Mounted Police have cut many of the trails of the 
Far North. When the big gold strikes were made in the 
Klondike, they built the first road through the wilds of 
the Yukon, and they have opened up parts of the Canadian 
Rockies to prospectors. Whenever a new gold district is 
discovered, or an oil find is reported, the Mounted Police 
are among the first on the scene, and every one knows that 
the law is at hand. That is why the Klondike was peace¬ 
able during gold rush days, while in Alaska, across the 
international boundary, notorious “bad men/' such as 
“Soapy Smith” and his gang, held almost undisputed 
sway for a time. 

The Mounted Police sometimes erect shelters along the 
new trails, in which they place stores of food for use of 
prospectors in an emergency. They often bring relief to 
those in the wilds rendered helpless through injury, dis¬ 
ease, or insanity. They settle on the spot minor disputes, 
especially among the Indians and Eskimos, sometimes 
perform marriages, and, as the Dawson inspector said to 
me to-day, do about everything any occasion may require 
except grant divorces. In extreme cases, a member of 
the force may arrest his man, try his case, sentence him to 
death, and, finally, act as clergyman, executioner, and 
290 



“Bring in your man” is the law, stronger than any legislative enact¬ 
ment, of the Mounted Police. The reputation established by this unique 
force for never giving up is one of the reasons for its astonishing success. 






With the increase of crime, especially murder, among the Eskimos of 
the Far North, the Mounted Police now have established several stations 
in the Arctic, including one on Ellesmere Island, in the Polar Sea. 



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 

coroner. It is the almost inviolate rule of the organiza¬ 
tion, however, that a prisoner must be brought in alive 
and given his chance at a fair trial. 

All these activities are carried on by a body of only a 
little more than a thousand men, scattered from the 
Maritime Provinces to the Alaska boundary. Here in the 
Yukon there are but fifty-one men, for whom horses and 
dogs furnish a part of the transportation. 

To get into the service a man must have a good charac¬ 
ter, a sound body, and some education. Most of the men 
speak both French and English. Recruits must be be¬ 
tween the ages of twenty-two and forty, unmarried, and 
expert horsemen. The term of enlistment is three years, 
with reenlistments permitted. Many of the present force 
have been long in the service. In their training at Regina, 
much attention is paid to shooting with both rifle and 
pistol, and in the latter the Mounted Police now hold the 
championship of all Canada. Many of them are young 
Englishmen who have failed to make their fortunes and 
some are younger sons of the nobility. In the old days a 
son of Charles Dickens, the novelist, served beside a former 
circus clown and the brother of a baronet. 

The inspector of this body at Dawson is the military 
ruler of a region bigger than Germany. It begins at the 
south, within thirty miles of the Pacific Ocean, and extends 
northward to Herschel Island, near where the Mackenzie 
River flows into the Arctic. It is about a thousand miles 
long and several hundred miles wide. The inspector tells 
me that his force is scattered all over this territory, from 
White Horse, at the end of the White Pass Railway, to 
Rampart House, on the Arctic Circle. When I asked him 
about the work of his force, he said: 

291 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


“ Each of our constables has one or two men with him, 
and sometimes an Indian or so. Together they patrol the 
whole country. They make long trips to the mines, and 
report what is going on among the prospectors. I n out-of- 
the-way places they keep order among the Indians and the 
Eskimos. They also look after the poor and the insane. 
Recently we heard that a dangerous lunatic was at large 
over in the Donjek District. Our patrol went after him 
and brought him several hundred miles through the coun¬ 
try to White Horse, whence he was later sent to an asylum. 
Last year our men penetrated to regions never visited be¬ 
fore; they frequently make trips of hundreds of miles by 
dog sled.” 

“ But how can you keep track of the people in such a 
large territory?” I asked. “Your whole land is a wilder¬ 
ness, and for more than half the year it is all snow and ice.” 

“ Each hotel and road house is required to keep a daily 
record of all who stop there,” he replied, “and I may say 
that we know about where every man in the territory sleeps 
every night. We are informed of all the passengers who 
start up or down river, and get reports from every tele¬ 
graph station they pass on the trip. When a steamer 
leaves White Horse for Dawson the purser hands in the 
names of his passengers and they are telegraphed here. 
If any one gets off on the way his name is wired to us, and 
we check up the list when the boat comes in. If three men 
set off in a canoe, the report on that canoe as it passes the 
next telegraph station will show us if one of them is miss¬ 
ing. The patrols also send in reports of the names and 
business of all newcomers in their districts.” 

“Give me some idea of the amount of crime committed 
in your territory.” 


292 


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 

“Our record is fairly good,” replied the inspector of the 
Mounted Police. “Last year we investigated forty-two 
cases, only eight of which were under the criminal code. 
Out of this total of forty-two, we secured thirty-seven 
convictions. Remember that this is for an area as big as 
France, and for a population made up largely of frontiers¬ 
men, miners, Indians, and Eskimos. Most of the time we 
have so few bad characters in jail here that it is difficult to 
keep our barracks in order and the lawn properly mowed. 
Just now we have two women serving terms for picking the 
pockets of men who were drunk. They work in the jail 
laundry, so we are sure of help in our washing for the rest 
of the year. 

“We have had but few murders in our territory,” the 
inspector continued. “The average was less than one a 
year for the first twenty years after the big rush to the 
Klondike, and in every case, without exception, the guilty 
were caught and executed. There are some interesting 
stories connected with crimes in this part of the world. 
Take, for instance, one that occurred in Alaska. The 
murdered man was a miner who had been killed by an 
Indian at the close of the season when the miners were 
about to leave for the winter. They had not time to fol¬ 
low the Indian, but they went to the chief of his tribe and 
told him that he must catch the murderer and have him 
ready for them when they returned in the spring. When 
the spring came they went to the chief and demanded the 
man. He replied: 

“ ‘ Me got him all right. You come see/ He thereupon 
took them to the back of the camp and showed them a dead 
Indian frozen in a large block of ice. As they looked, the 
chief continued: 


293 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


“ ‘ We got him last fall. We know you kill him in spring, 
so we shoot him in fall. What use feed him all winter?' 

“We had a case of a miner who inveigled two young men 
with money to go with him in a canoe two hundred miles 
down the Yukon. From there they were to make their 
way inland to a gold prospect the miner had located. As 
they camped, the miner had one of the men build a fire, 
while he took the other off to hunt game. Within a short 
time the man at the camp heard a shot and later the miner 
came in and said they had killed a bear about a mile away 
and wanted the man at the camp to go with him to bring 
in the meat. The two started off together, the miner 
walking behind. The stranger began to think that all 
was not right. He turned his head quickly and found that 
his companion had raised his rifle and was drawing a bead 
on him. He grappled with him and succeeded in getting 
the gun. He ran away and finally got to Dawson, where 
he notified us. We watched the river and within a few 
days the old miner came down in a boat. Our men ar¬ 
rested him and then went back to the camp and found the 
body of the man who started out to hunt bear. The mur¬ 
derer was tried in a month and hanged two months later." 

“Do you ever have any lynchings?" 1 asked. 

“ I do not believe there has ever been a lynching in all 
Canada," said the inspector. “Certainly I never have 
heard of one in the Yukon. Neither do we have hold-ups 
such as are not uncommon, I am told, in the United 
States." 

The inspector's reference to hold-ups reminded me of a 
story of a highwayman I heard at the Mounted Police 
headquarters in Ottawa. A road agent held up a man 
and a woman who were riding through the hills. He cov- 
294 


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 

ered them with his revolver and made the man dismount 
so he could go through his pockets. The woman was sit¬ 
ting on her horse, congratulating herself upon her escape, 
when the robber stepped up to her, saying, “Beg pardon. 
Just a moment, madam.” He thereupon gently raised 
her skirt to her knees, thrust his hand into her stocking, 
and took out her money. He seemed to know just where 
it was, and there was no waste effort. 

“One of the classics of our service”—it is the inspector 
who is speaking once more—“is the King-Hayward case. 
Edward Hayward, a young Englishman, was killed in the 
wilds around Lesser Slave Lake. He had gone up there 
from Edmonton to hunt with Charles King, an American 
from Salt Lake City. Some weeks later an Indian notified 
one of our sergeants that two men had come into the coun¬ 
try and one of them had disappeared. The officer got on 
the trail, went to the last camp fire, where the Indian re¬ 
ported seeing both men, and sifted the ashes. He found 
three hard lumps of flesh and a bit of skull bone. Near the 
camp fire was a little pond. In this Indian women were 
set to work to fish up with their toes any hard substance 
they might find in the ooze. The^ brought up a stick-pin 
of unusual design and a pocketbook. The pond was 
drained and on the bottom was a shoe with a broken needle 
sticking in it. The sergeant then examined the ashes of the 
fire with a microscope, which revealed the eye of the broken 
needle. 

“ King was tracked down and arrested, and Hayward’s 
brother was brought on from England to identify the 
trinkets of the murdered man. It took the sergeant eleven 
months to complete his case, and he had to bring forty 
Indian and half-breed witnesses from Lesser Slave Lake 
295 


CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 


to Edmonton to testify at the trial. But King was finally 
convicted and hanged. All this cost the Canadian 
government more than thirty thousand dollars, yet it was 
not considered a waste of money.” 

1 inquired of the inspector the cause of most of the crime 
in his division. He replied: 

“One of our troubles is with smuggled liquor. We try 
especially to keep it from the Indians, but nevertheless it 
gets in. In one instance bottles of whisky were shipped to 
the Yukon inside the carcasses of dressed hogs. In an¬ 
other a woman contrived a rubber sleeve, which she filled 
with whisky. All one had to do for a drink was to give her 
arm a hard squeeze.” 

I asked how it was that the Mounted Police are so feared 
by bad characters that this whole territory can be con¬ 
trolled by a handful of them. The officer replied: 

“Every man in frontier Canada knows that if he is 
wanted by the Mounted Police, they are sure to get him. 
A fugitive from justice could very easily kill one of our 
men sent after him, but he realizes that if he does so, 
another will follow, and as many more as are necessary 
until he is brought in. I have seen constables arrest men 
of twice their weight and strength, and have had one or 
two men round up a mob and bring them all to jail. This 
is true not only of our own bad men, but also of those who 
come across from Alaska. They may be dangerous on the 
other side of the border, but they are always gentle enough 
when they get here. 

“The big thing that helps us,” concluded the head of the 
police, “is that the government supports us up to the 
limit. For example, it cost us two hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars to convict in one famous murder case, but it was done 
296 


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE 


and the guilty man hanged. Ottawa always tells us that 
it is prepared to spend any amount of money rather than 
have a murderer go unpunished. It is that policy that 
enables us to keep order here.” 


THE END 


297 


SEEING THE WORLD 


WITH 

Frank G. Carpenter 

Doubleday, Page & Company, in response to the de¬ 
mand from Carpenter readers, are now publishing the com¬ 
plete story of CARPENTER'S WORLD TRAVELS, of 
which this book is the tenth in the series. Those now 
available are: 

1. “The Holy Land and Syria’’ 

2. “From Tangier to Tripoli” 

Morocco, Algeria, 

Tunisia, and Tripoli 

3. “ Alaska , Our Northern Wonderland” 

4. “ The Tail of the Hemisphere” 

Chile and Argentina 

5. “From Cairo to Kisumu” 

Egypt, the Sudan, 
and Kenya Colony 

6. “Java and the East Indies” 

Java, Sumatra, 

the Moluccas, New Guinea, 

Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula 

7. “ France to Scandinavia ’ ’ 

France, Belgium, 

Holland, Denmark, 

Norway, and Sweden 
298 


SEEING THE WORLD 


8 . “Mexico” 

g. “ Australia , New Zealand , and Some Islands of the 
South Seas” 

Australia, New Zealand, 

New Guinea, the Samoas, 
the Fijis, and the Tongas 

io. “Canada” 

and Newfoundland 

Millions of Americans have already found Carpenter 
their ideal fellow traveller, and have enjoyed visiting 
with him all the corners of the globe. He tells his readers 
what they want to know, shows them what they want to 
see, and makes them feel that they are there. 

CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS are the only 
works of their kind. These books are familiar talks about 
the countries and peoples of the earth, with the author on 
the spot and the reader in his home. No other one man has 
visited so much of the globe and written on the ground, in 
plain and simple language, the story of what he has found. 
CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS are not the casual 
record of incidents of the journey, but the painstaking 
study of a trained observer, devoting his life to the task of 
international reporting. Each book is complete in itself; 
together they form the most vivid, interesting, and under¬ 
standable picture of our modern world ever published. 
They are the fruit of more than thirty years of unparalleled 
success in writing for the American people, and the cap¬ 
stone of distinguished services to the teaching of geography 
in our public schools, which have used some four million 
copies of the Carpenter Geographical Readers. 


299 













s 
























I 













INDEX 


Abitibi, large production of news¬ 
print at, 92. 

Agriculture, in Newfoundland, 11; in 
Quebec, 47,48; possibilities of Mani¬ 
toba, 154. 

Air plant, a polar orchid along the 
Yukon Trail, 236. 

Airplanes, fail in attempt to reach 
Fort Norman, 205. 

Alberta, coal deposits estimated to 
be one seventh of the world’s total, 
200; extent of pure bred cattle and 
dairy industries, 208. 

Alberta Railway and Irrigation Com¬ 
pany, pioneer in Alberta irrigation 
work, 207. 

Alfalfa, largely produced in south¬ 
western Saskatchewan, 176. 

American “branch plants’’ in Canada, 
104. 

American capital and investments in 
Canada, 105. 

American owned pulp-mills and tim¬ 
ber tracts in Canada, 96. 

Americans, number of, in Canada, 2, 
193. 

Anderson, Charlie, his lucky strike in 
the Klondike, 275. 

Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia’s apple¬ 
growing district, 34. 

Anyox, British Columbia, copper 
mines at, 223. 

Apples, largely grown in Annapolis 
Valley, Nova Scotia, 34; in the 
Okanagan Valley, 223. 

Asbestos, most of world's supply pro¬ 
duced in Thetford district, Quebec, 
47 - 

Astrophysical Observatory at Vic¬ 
toria, British Columbia, 223. 

“Athabaska Trail,” poem by Sir 
Arthur Conan Doyle, 205. 

Automobiles, American, in Canada, 
104. 


Banff, finest mountain resort of 
Canada, 215. 

Bank of Montreal, one of the world’s 
great banks, 73. 

Banks and the banking system of 
Canada, 69, et seq. 

Banting, Dr. F. G., discoverer of 
Insulin, 99. 

Barley, production in the Winnipeg 
district, 149; large crops at Edmon¬ 
ton, 200; in Peace River Valley, 
202. 

Baseball, popular in Nova Scotia, 35; 
in Toronto, 101. 

Bassano, great irrigation dam at, 206. 

Battleford, Saskatchewan, noted for 
its fur trade and lumber mills, 
179 - 

Beach, Rex, in the Klondike, 278. 

Bears, abundant in the Yukon, 234. 

Beatty, E. W., first Canadian-born 
president of the Canadian Pacific, 
165. 

Beaver, the first fur exported by the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, 169; abun¬ 
dant in the Yukon, 234. 

Beck, Sir Adam, at the head of On¬ 
tario Hydro-Electric Commission, 
110. 

Bell Island, visit to the Wabana iron 
mines on, 26. 

Belle Isle, Strait of, 4. 

Big game of the Yukon region, 253. 

Black, George, demonstrates to Ot¬ 
tawa Parliament possibility of 
winter automobile travel in the 
Yukon, 239. 

Bonsecours Market, at Montreal, 66. 

Boyle, Joseph W., successful gold¬ 
dredging operations in the Yukon, 
271; the story of his career, 281. 

Branch plants, American, in Canada, 
104. 

Bras d’Or Lake, an inland sea, 39. 


303 


INDEX 


Bright "Dickie,” a character of old- 
time Calgary, 211. 

British American Nickel Company, 
operators of mines at Sudbury, 130. 

British Columbia, timber resources of, 
90; production of silver in, 124; 
agricultural and mineral resources, 
220 et seq. 

Buffalo, last wild herd reported to be 
near Fort Vermilion, 202; largest 
herd in America at Wainwright 
Park, Alberta, 217. 

Cabbage, as raised at Dawson, Yukon, 
265. 

Cabot, Sebastian, reported that fish 
obstructed navigation on New¬ 
foundland coast, 13. 

Cabot Tower, commemorating dis¬ 
covery of Newfoundland, 6. 

Calgary, Alberta, huge irrigation 
works of the Canadian Pacific Rail¬ 
way at, 206, 207; the city and its 
industries, 209. 

Camping and hunting in Ontario 
province, 139. 

Canadian Bank of Commerce, es¬ 
tablished in the Klondike, 280. 

Canadian Banking Act, provisions of, 
72. 

Canadian Banking Association, of 
semi-official status, 73. 

Canadian Klondike Mining Com¬ 
pany, established by Joe Boyle, 284. 

Canadian National Railways, eastern 
terminus at Halifax, 31; extent of, 
158; work abroad to induce immi¬ 
gration, 190; transcontinental route 
from Prince Rupert to Halifax, 229. 

Canadian Northern Railway, growth 
of, 162. 

Canadian Pacific Railway, eastern 
terminus at St. John, N. B., 41; 
extent of its railroad and steamship 
service, 158, 160; work abroad to 
induce immigration, 190; begins 
huge irrigation project near Cal¬ 
gary, 206, 207; leads in exploiting 
Canada’s scenic wonders, 218. 

Canadian relations with the United 
States, 85. 

Canso, Strait of, railroad trains 
ferried across, 39. 

Cantilever bridge, world’s longest at 
Quebec, 45. 


Cape Breton Island, port of province 
of Nova Scotia, 38. 

Cape Race, chief signal station of the 
North Atlantic, 3. 

Cape Spear, most easterly point of 
North America, 6. 

"Card money,” circulation of, 74. 

Caribou, abundant in Newfoundland, 
11; in northern Ontario, 140; in the 
Yukon, 234, 253; meat sold at 
butcher shops in Dawson, 253. 

Carmack, George, discoverer of gold 
in the Klondike, 274. 

Carrots, a successful crop at Dawson, 
Yukon, 261. 

Cartier, Jacques, early explorations of, 
45 - 

Catholicism, Quebec the American 
capital of French, 57. 

Cattalo, cross between buffalo and 
cattle, raised in large numbers at 
Wainwright Park, 218. 

Cattle, pure bred, in Alberta, 208; 
transportation of, on the Yukon 
River, 242. 

Cattle ranches being supplanted by 
farms in Alberta, 206. 

Chateau Laurier, government rail¬ 
road hotel at Ottawa, 81. 

Chaudiere Falls, source of power for 
Ottawa manufactures, 80. 

Chicken Billy and his ten-thousand- 
dollar potato patch, 259. 

Chinese labourers, not admitted to 
Canada, 190. 

Chippewa, immense hydro-electric de¬ 
velopment at, 113. 

Chisana, abandoned town on the 
Yukon River, 244. 

"Circle tour,” the Canadian Rockies, 
Yellowstone Park, and Grand Can¬ 
yon motor route, 215. 

Clay Belt, the Great, agricultural 
possibilities in, 139. 

Clergue steel plant, at Sault Ste. 
Marie, 135. 

Climate, at Edmonton, 200, at Prince 
Rupert, British Columbia, 228; at 
Dawson, Yukon, 256. 

Coaker, Sir William, organizer of 
Newfoundland Fishermen’s Pro¬ 
tective Union, 21. 

Coal, great importance of the Sydney 
mines, 39; amount saved by de¬ 
velopment of Canada’s waterpower, 


304 


INDEX 


108; Alberta’s deposits, the greatest 
in the Dominion, 200; immense 
deposits, near Crow’s Nest Pass, 
221. 

Cobalt, Ontario, world’s richest silver 
deposits at, 119. 

Cobalt, immense production of the 
mineral at Cobalt, Ontario, 125. 

Cochrane, “Billy,” breeder of “wild” 
cattle at Calgary, 210. 

Cochrane, Senator, owner of large 
cattle ranch in Alberta, 207. 

Cod fisheries, of Newfoundland, 13; 
of Nova Scotia, 36. 

Coffee, George T., lucky miner in 
the Yukon, 266. 

Coke ovens, at the coal deposits near 
Crow’s Nest Pass, 221. 

Columbia River, source of, in the 
Kootenays, 220. 

Conservation of forests in Canada, 89. 

Copper, rich deposits in Newfound¬ 
land, 12; in the Kootenay country, 
221, 222. 

Copper sulphate, byproduct of Sud¬ 
bury mines, 130. 

Cornwallis, Lord, city of Halifax, 
founded by, 32. 

“Country banks” of coal, the settler’s 
recourse, 201. 

Creighton Nickel Mine, largest pro¬ 
ducer in the world, 127. 

“Cremation of Sam McGee,” poem 
by Robert Service, 257. 

Crow’s Nest Pass, railway line through, 
217, 220; immense coal deposits 
near, 221. 

Cucumbers, a hot-house crop, at 
Dawson, Yukon, 261. 

Curling, a popular game in Canada, 

68 . 

Dairy cattle and products of Alberta, 
208. 

Dawson, the capital of the Yukon, 
250 et seq. 

Deer, plentiful in Nova Scotia, 57. 

Divorce, no laws for, in Newfound¬ 
land, 9. 

Domestic servants, scarcity of, 192. 

Dominion Agricultural Department, 
originates improved wheat varieties, 
183. 

Douglas fir, principal timber of British 
Columbia, 91. 


Doukhobars, fanatical colonists from 
Russia, 194. 

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, poem, 
“The Athabasca Trail,” 205. 

Dredging for gold in the Yukon, 267, 
269. 

Dunsmore, Lord, as a pioneer names 
town of Moose Jaw, 179. 

Edmonton, Alberta, the gateway to 
the northwest, 197 et seq. 

Electric current, low cost of in south¬ 
ern Ontario, 106, 108, 111. 

Electrically heated water for winter 
mining in the Klondike, 285. 

Elevators, how conducted in the Ca¬ 
nadian wheat belt, 186. 

Farm labour, how obtained for the 
Canadian wheat fields, 184. 

Farmers, American, movement to the 
Canadian wheat belt, 193. 

Farmhouses, well built in Nova Scotia, 
38 . 

Farming, on the edge of the Arctic, 
259 - 

Fisheries, of Newfoundland, 13; of 
Nova Scotia, 36. 

Fisheries of British Columbia, extent 
of, 230. 

Fishermen, Newfoundland, their hard 
lives and small incomes, 20. 

Fishermen’s Protective Union, activi¬ 
ties of, 21. 

Flax seed, production in the Winnipeg 
district, 149. 

Fleming, Peter, plans harbour develop¬ 
ment of Montreal, 62. 

Floating dry dock, at Prince Rupert, 
229. 

Flour industry, location of principal 
mills, 186. 

Football, popular in Toronto, 101. 

Forest fires and protective measures, 
89. 

Forest reserves, set aside by govern¬ 
ment of Ontario, 139. 

Forests, denudation of Canadian, 88. 

Fort Garry, present site of Winnipeg, 
151 - 

Fort McMurray, on the route to the 
new oil fields, 203. 

Fort Norman, trading post for the 
new oil region, 203. 


305 


INDEX 


Fort Smith, capital of the Northwest 
Territories, 203. 

Fort Vermillion, last herd of wild 
wood buffalo reported near, 202. 

Fort William, the great wheat centre, 
135, 141. 

Fox, Black, price of fur declining 
since advent of fur farming, 173. 

Fox farms on Prince Edward Island, 
40; near Indian Lorette, Quebec, 44. 

Fraser River, gold discoveries on, the 
first in British Columbia, 223. 

Freighters, Lake Superior, 146. 

French, dispute British claims to 
Newfoundland fisheries, 14; at¬ 
tempts to hold Nova Scotia, 15; 
driven from Cape Breton Island, 39. 

French, the language of Quebec, 49. 

French Canada—Quebec, 42. 

French Catholicism, Quebec the Amer¬ 
ican capital of, 57. 

Fruit growing in the Okanagan Valley, 
British Columbia, 224. 

Fundy, Bay of, the forty-foot tides of, 
38. 

Fur, and the great organizations con¬ 
cerned in its marketing, 166 et seq. 

Gas, natural, at Swift Current, Sas¬ 
katchewan, 180; at Medicine Flat 
and near Edmonton, 201. 

Gates, Swift-Water Bill, his great 
strike in the Klondike, 277; partner¬ 
ship with Jack London, 278; part¬ 
nership with Joe Boyle, 282. 

Glace Bay, first transatlantic cable 
landed at, 39. 

Gold, but little found in Labrador, 
11; production of, in the Porcupine 
district, 125; in the Kootenay coun¬ 
try, 221; first discovery in British 
Columbia, on the Fraser River, 
223; supply being exhausted in the 
Klondike, 250; the wonders of the 
Yukon, 266. 

Gouin reservoir, immense waterpower 
development in Quebec, 47. 

Government ownership of railroads, 
how brought about, 162. 

Governor-General, the, his position 
in the Canadian government, 84. 

Grain-carrying ships, of the Great 
Lakes, 146. 

Grain elevators, at Port Arthur and 
Fort William, 141 et seq. 


Grain sacks, manufacture of, a leading 
industry of Montreal, 63. 

Granby Company, miners and smel¬ 
ters of copper in British Columbia, 
222. 

Grand Banks, the cod fishing grounds, 
4, 19. 

Grand Forks, British Columbia, smel¬ 
ter closed down after a record 
production, 222. 

Grand Trunk railway, growth of, 
in Canada, 162. 

Grande Prairie, largest town in the 
Peace River Valley, 202. 

Great Divide, crossing the, 213. 

Great Slave Lake, on the route to the 
new oil fields, 204. 

Grenfell, Dr., sailors’ mission of, at 
St. John’s, 8. 

Gulf Stream, its influence on New¬ 
foundland, 4, 5. 

Halibut, large production of the Brit¬ 
ish Columbia fisheries, 230. 

Halifax, chief city and capital of 
Nova Scotia, 31. 

Halifax explosion, one of the greatest 
ever known, 33. 

Hamilton, Ontario, prosperity due to 
cheap electric power from Niagara, 
117. 

Hayward, Edward, his murder near 
Lesser Slave Lake, and the running 
down of his murderer, 295. 

Hematite ore, in the Kootenay coun¬ 
try, 221. 

Hidden Creek copper mines, largest 
in British Columbia, 223. 

Hill, James J., prediction of Canada’s 
future population, 189. 

Hockey, the great game of Canada, 68. 

Hogs, raised at Dawson, Yukon, 260, 
262. 

Hollinger Mine, largest gold mine in 
North America, 125. 

Holt, Renfrew and Company, great 
furriers at Quebec, 171. 

Homesteads in the Yukon, 265. 

Horse raising, in Alberta, 209. 

Hot-houses for cucumbers and to¬ 
matoes at Dawson, Yukon, 261. 

Hudson Bay, railways projected to, 
* 55 - 

Hudson’s Bay Company, history of, 

166 et seq. 


306 


INDEX 


Hudson Strait, chief difficulty in navi¬ 
gation of Hudson Bay Route, 156. 

Hull, wet suburb of dry Ottawa, 80. 

Hunting, in Newfoundland, 11. 

Hunting and camping in Ontario 
province, 139. 

Hydraulic mining, in the Yukon, 267. 

Hydro-electric Commission, work of, 
in Ontario, 102, 103, 106, 107. 

Hydro-electric development in Que¬ 
bec, 46; of Niagara Falls, 106; of 
Welland River at Niagara Falls, 

113; at Sault St. Marie, 134. 

Hydro-electric development and the 
paper and pulp industry, 96. 

Hydro-electric plant, supplying St. 
John’s, 15. 

Hydro-electric project at Ogdensburg 
proposed for furnishing power to 
United States and Canada, 100. 

Ibex Range, as seen from the Yukon 
trail, 236. 

Ice Palace, formerly erected each 
winter at Montreal, 68. 

Icelanders, a colony of, near Winni¬ 
peg, 152. 

Immigration, Canada's desire for, 188 
et seq. 

Indian Head, government forestry 
experiments at, 178. 

Insulin, specific for treatment of dia¬ 
betes, discovered at University of 
Toronto, 99. 

International Joint Commission, ap¬ 
proves project for improvement of 
St. Lawrence waterway, 100. 

International Nickel Company of 
Canada, Ltd., owners of rich Sud¬ 
bury mines, 127. 

Iron, one of the world’s largest de¬ 
posits in Newfoundland, 12; the 
wonderful Wabana mines, 24; in 
the Kootenay country, 221. 

Irrigation in Alberta, 206; in the 
Okanagan Valley, 224. 

Japanese labourers, not admitted to 
Canada, 190. 

Jasper Park, greatest of Canada’s 
western game and forest reserve, 
217. 

Keeley Mine, rich silver veins of, at 
Cobalt, 124. 


Keno Hill, new silver district in the 
Yukon, 124. 

Kicking Horse Pass, where the railway 
crosses the Great Divide, 216. 

King, Charles, his capture and con¬ 
viction of murder by the Mounted 
Police, 295. 

King Solomon’s Dome, in the centre of 
the Klondike gold region, 274. 

Kirkland Lake gold district, produc¬ 
tion of, 125. 

Klondike, the supply of gold being ex¬ 
hausted, 250; romances of the, 274. 

Kootenay country, resources of, 220, 
221. 

Kootenay Lake, steamer trip through, 
221. 

Labrador, cod fisheries of, 19. 

Labour, how obtained for the Cana¬ 
dian wheat fields, 184. 

Lac Beauvert, a mountain resort of 
the Canadian National Railways, 
217. 

La Chine Rapids, so-named by Car- 
tier, 61. 

Lachine Canal, near Montreal, 64. 

Lacrosse, one of the most popular 
Canadian games, 67. 

Lake of the Woods, a beautiful camp¬ 
ing and hunting district, 139. 

La Rose, discoverer of silver at Co¬ 
balt, 122. 

Land grants to the Canadian Pacific 
Railway, 190. 

Laurentian Mountains, oldest rock 
formation of the continent, 48. 

Le Roi Copper Mine at Rossland, 
British Columbia, 222. 

Leacock, Stephen, at McGill Uni¬ 
versity, Montreal, 63. 

Lead, in the Kootenay country, 221. 

Left-hand driving, the custom in 
Newfoundland, 25. 

Life insurance, amount held by Ca¬ 
nadians, 78. 

Lignite coal, in Saskatchewan, 180. 

Live stock, transportation of on the 
Yukon River, 242. 

Live stock production in Newfound¬ 
land, 11. 

London, Jack, in the Klondike, 278. 

London, Ontario, greatly increased 
consumption of electricity due to 
low price, 112. 


307 


INDEX 


Louise, Lake, in the Canadian Rock¬ 
ies, 216. 

Lumber, production at Sault Ste. 
Marie, 135; production of the 
Saskatchewan province, 176, 179; 
immense quantities shipped from 
Vancouver, 225. 

Lumber industry of Canada, the, 88 
et seq. 

Manitoba, extent of the province, its 
topography and resources, 154. 

Maritime Provinces, of Canada, the, 
3i- 

Marquette, Father, establishes first 
Jesuit mission in the new world at 
Sault Ste. Marie, 135. 

Marquis, valuable variety of wheat 
originated by Dominion Agricul¬ 
tural Department, 183. 

Matches, manufacture of, at Ottawa, 

80, 88. 

Medicine Hat, natural gas wells at, 
201. 

Mennonites, at Winnipeg, 153; colo¬ 
nies of, from Russia, 194, 195. 

McGill University, Montreal, 63. 

Miller, Joaquin, in the Klondike, 278. 

Mine props, cut in Newfoundland for 
use in English and Welsh mines, 
11. 

Mining wonders of the far North, 266. 

Mond Nickel Company, operators of 
mines at Sudbury, 130. 

Monel metal, how produced, 129. 

Montreal, Canada’s largest city and 
financial centre, 60 et seq. 

Moose, plentiful in Nova Scotia, 37; 
in Ontario province, 140; in the 
Yukon, 234, 253; meat sold at 
butcher shops at Dawson, 253. 

Moose Jaw, an important commercial 
centre of Saskatchewan, 179. 

Mosses, along the Yukon trail, 236. 

Mother’s pension, in Ontario, 103. 

Motor tourists, welcomed in Quebec, 

5 °. 

Mountain goats, abundant in the 
Yukon, 253. 

Mountain sheep, abundant in the 
Yukon, 253. 

Mount Robson, highest peak in 
Canada, 217. 

Mount Royal, from which Montreal 
is named, 61. 


Municipal ownership in Port Arthur 
and Fort William, 143. 

Muskrat, a valuable fur when dyed 
and prepared, 172. 

Names, fanciful, in Newfoundland 
geography, 12. 

National debt of Canada, greatly in¬ 
creased during the World War, 188. 

Natural gas, at Swift Current, Sas¬ 
katchewan, 180; at Medicine Hat, 
and near Edmonton, 201. 

Nelson, British Columbia, in the heart 
of the mining country, 221. 

New Brunswick, its resources and in¬ 
dustries, 40. 

New Caledonia, nickel production of, 
127. 

Newfoundland, size and strategic im¬ 
portance, 4; population, 7; educa¬ 
tion and church activities, 7; po¬ 
litical relation to British Empire, 
8; system of government, 9. 

Newspapers in the early Klondike 
days, 280. 

News-print, production of the Sault 
Ste. Marie mills, 134. 

Niagara Falls, hydro-electric develop¬ 
ment of, 106, 113. 

Niagara Falls Railway Arch Bridge, 
cost of lighting American half more 
than double Canadian, 108. 

Nickel, largest production in the world 
at Sudbury, Ontario, 127; the dif¬ 
ferent uses of the metal, 131 

Nickel-steel, the many uses of, 131. 

Nipissing silver mine at Cobalt, 122. 

Northcliffe, Lord, built plant in New¬ 
foundland for supply of pulp wood 
paper, 11. 

Northwest Company, opponent of 
the Hudson’s Bay Company, finally 
absorbed, 170. 

Notre Dame, Church of, at Montreal, 
65 - 

Nova Scotia, travels, in, 31 et seq. 

Oats, production in the Winnipeg 
district, 149; large crops at Edmon¬ 
ton, 200; in Peace River Valley, 202. 

Oats hay, a farm crop at Dawson, 
Yukon, 261. 

Ogdensburg, N. Y., site of proposed 
hydro-electric plant for supplying 
Canada and the United States, 100. 


308 


INDEX 


Oil fields, the new operations along the 
MacKenzie, 203 et seq. 

Okanagan Valley, famous as fruit¬ 
growing region, 223. 

Ontario, Province of, richest in mineral 
and agricultural wealth and indus¬ 
trial development, 103; the frontier 
of the province, 137. 

Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission, 
work of, in Ontario, 102, 103, 106, 
107. 

Ottawa, capital of the Dominion, 79 
et seq. 

Paper, Quebec leading producer of, 
46; greatly increased production of, 
in Canada, 92; process of manufac¬ 
ture, 93. 

Paper mills, at Ottawa, 80, 88. 

Parliament buildings, at Ottawa, 82. 

Peace River, the town of, 202. 

Peace River Valley, agricultural pos¬ 
sibilities in, 202. 

Petroleum, in Alberta, 201; the new 
field along the Mackenzie, 203. 

Petty Harbour, typical Newfound¬ 
land “outport,” 16. 

Phoenix, British Columbia, copper 
mines at, 222. 

Pilgrimages to Ste. Anne de Beaupre, 
52. 

Porcupine gold district, production of, 
125. 

Port Arthur, the great wheat centre, 

135, 141- 

Port Nelson, projected terminus of the 
Hudson Bay Route, and port for 
wheat shipment, 155. 

Portage la Prairie, a prosperous farm¬ 
ing section, 175. 

Potatoes, success with in Dawson, 
Yukon, 259. 

Poultry raising in the Arctic, 260. 

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, noted 
for its fur trade and lumber mills, 
179 - 

Prince Edward Island, smallest but 
richest province in the Dominion, 40. 

Prince Rupert, northern terminus of 
Canadian National Railways and 
nearest port to the Orient, 226 
et seq. 

Public ownership, in Toronto, 101 et 
seq.) success of the Ontario Hydro- 
Electric Commission, 107. 


Pulp wood, chief product of forests 
in Newfoundland, 11; great pro¬ 
duction of Quebec, 46; Canada’s 
resources in, of great importance to 
the United States, 91, 96. 

Pulp mills, at Ottawa, 88; great in¬ 
crease in numbers of, in Canada, 92; 
at Sault Ste. Marie, 134. 

Quebec, and its history, 42; popula¬ 
tion, 46. 

Queenston Chippewa hydro-electric 
plant below Niagara Falls, 113. 

Radio, fisheries of Nova Scotia con¬ 
trolled by, 36. 

Rabbits, destruction of trees by, 234. 

Railways, in Newfoundland, 10; 
trans-continental, of Canada, 157; 
government-owned in Canada, 162. 

Rainfall, excessive, at Prince Rupert, 
British Columbia, 229. 

Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, 
177 - 

Religious denominations in New¬ 
foundland, 7. 

Remittance men, in Calgary, 210. r 

Revillon Freres, chief competitor to 
the Hudson’s Bay Company, 170. 

Rideau Canal, at Ottawa, 80, 81. 

Rideau Hall, residence of the Gover¬ 
nor-General, at Ottawa, 84. 

Rockies, Canadian, beauty of the, 213. 

Rocky Mountain Park, finest moun¬ 
tain resort of Canada, 215. 

Royal Bank of Canada, connections 
abroad, 77. 

Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 
training camp at Regina, 177; dis¬ 
trict headquarters at Dawson, 251; 
the story of the service, 288 et seq. 

Russian church, at Winnipeg, 153. 

Rye, production in the Winnipeg dis¬ 
trict, 149. 

St. Boniface, old French-Canadian 
settlement near Winnipeg, 152. 

St. Helene Island, once owned by 
Champlain, 64. 

St. James, Cathedral of, at Montreal, 
65. 

St. John, chief city of New Bruns¬ 
wick, 41. 

St. John’s, capital and chief port of 


309 


INDEX 


Newfoundland, 3, 5; around about 
the city, 8. 

St. Lawrence River, International 
plans for improvement of, 99. 

St. Mary’s River, hydro-electric de¬ 
velopment of, 134. 

St. Paul’s Church, Halifax, first 
English house of worship in Canada, 

St. Pierre Island, headquarters of 
bootleggers, 15. 

Sainte Anne de Beaupr6, the Shrine 
and its miraculous cures, 52. 

Salmon fishing, in Newfoundland, 11. 

Salmon fisheries of British Colum¬ 
bia, 231. 

Sanderson, John, first homesteader at 
Portage la Prairie, 175. 

Saskatchewan, greatest wheat prov¬ 
ince of the Dominion, 175 et seq., 
181 et seq. 

Saskatoon, second largest city of 
Saskatchewan, 179. 

Sault Ste. Marie, hydro-electric de¬ 
velopment of, 134; one of the oldest 
settlements in Canada, 135. 

Sealing industry, of Newfoundland, 
21. 

Selkirk, Lord, his colony in Manitoba 
the first wheat farmers, 182. 

Service, Robert, the poet of the Yu¬ 
kon, 249, 257, 279. 

Settlers, Canada’s inducements to, 
191. 

Shawinigan Falls, hydro-electric de¬ 
velopment of, 46. 

Shaughnessy, Lord, an American boy 
who became president of the Ca¬ 
nadian Pacific, 165. 

Sheep, in southern Alberta, 208. 

Silver in the Kootenay country, 221. 

Silver mines of northern Ontario, 119. 

Slavin, Frank, in the Klondike, 278; 
partnership with Joe Boyle, 282. 

“Soo” Canal, the waterway and its 
traffic, 136. 

Sports, Canadian, 67; outdoor games 
promoted by municipal athletic 
commission at Toronto, 101. 

Spruce, predominant standing timber 
of Canada, 91. 

Steam thawing of the ground in Yukon 
mining, 266, 271. 

Steel industries developed in Sydney 
district, Nova Scotia, 39. 


Stock raising in southwestern Saskat¬ 
chewan, 176. 

Sudbury, rich nickel deposits at, 126, 
127. 

Sunlight, hours of, at Dawson, Yukon, 
264. 

Superior, Lake, the grain-carrying 
trade through, 141 et seq. 

Swift Current, an important commer¬ 
cial centre of Saskatchewan, 179. 

Sydney coal mines, of immense im¬ 
portance, 39. 

Tahkeena River, crossing of, on the 
Yukon trail, 235. 

The Pas, an undeveloped mineral 
region, 154. 

Thomas, C. A., demonstrates pos¬ 
sibility of winter automobile travel 
in the Yukon, 239. 

Thornton, Sir Henry, in charge of 
the Canadian national railways, 
164. 

Three Rivers, Quebec, largest pro¬ 
duction of paper in the world, at, 
47 , 92 . 

Threshing, methods in the Canadian 
wheat belt, 185. 

Tides, forty feet high in Bay of 
Fundy, 38. 

Timber, valuable tracts in Newfound¬ 
land, 11. 

Timothy hay, large crops at Edmon¬ 
ton, 200. 

Tomatoes, a hot-house crop at Daw¬ 
son, Yukon, 261. 

Toronto, the city of public ownership, 
97 et seq. 

Toronto University, largest in the 
British Empire, 98. 

Trans-continental railway systems of 
Canada, 157. 

Trappists, at Winnipeg, 153. 

Truro, Nova Scotia, 38. 

Turnips, as a crop, at Dawson, Yukon, 
264. 

University of Saskatchewan, efforts in 
behalf of agriculture and ceramics, 
179 - 

Valley of the Ten Peaks, in the Ca¬ 
nadian Rockies, 216. 

Vancouver, chief city of British Co- 


310 


INDEX 


lumbia and Canada’s most impor¬ 
tant Pacific port, 224. 

Vancouver Island, copper workings 
on, 223. 

Van Horne, Wm., strenuous railroad 
builder, 165. 

Veneer, manufacture of, at Sault Ste. 
Marie, 135. 

Victoria, capital of British Columbia, 
225. 

Wabana iron mines rich undersea 
deposits, 24. 

Wainwright Park, Alberta, contain¬ 
ing largest herd of buffalo extant, 
217. 

Waterfalls that work for the people, 
106 et seq. 

Water-power, great developments in 
Quebec, 46; its relation to the paper 
and pulp industry, 96. 

Welland Canal, building of deeper 
and larger locks, 99. 

Welland River, hydro-electric devel¬ 
opment of, 113. 

Wheat, the great movement through 
Port Arthur and Fort William, 141 
et seq.\ production of the Winnipeg 
district, 149; on the Saskatchewan 
prairies, 175, 181; methods of plant¬ 
ing and harvesting in the Canadian 
wheat belt, 183; large crops at Ed¬ 


monton, 200; in Peace River Val¬ 
ley, 202; importance of Vancouver 
as a shipping point, 225. 

Wheat belt, Canada’s, its immense 
extent and great production, 181. 

White Horse, beginning of the trail 
to Dawson, 232. 

White pine timber becoming ex¬ 
hausted in Canada, 91. 

Wild flowers, abundant in the Yukon, 
235 - 

Williams-Taylor, Sir Frederick, in¬ 
terview with, on Canadian banking, 
73 -. 

Winnipeg, a fast-growing city, 148 
et seq.) its importance in the fur 
trade, 166. 

Winter sports in Quebec, 50. 

Wireless telegraph, fisheries of Nova 
Scotia controlled by, 36. 

Wolfe, General, captures Quebec from 
the French, 43. 

Women, opportunities for, in Canada, 
192. 

Yellowhead Pass, railway line through, 
217. 

Yukon Gold Company, dividends paid 
by, 269. 

Yukon River, a trip on the, 241. 

Yukon Territory, by motor car 
through the, 232. 








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